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Episode: Maddow: 'History is calling' as pivotal election season winds down

Author: Rachel Maddow, MSNBC
Duration: 00:44:41

Episode Shownotes

Plus, Yulia Navlanaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is Rachel Maddow's special guest.

Summary

In this episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel stresses the importance of civic engagement as the pivotal election approaches, urging listeners to go beyond voting to actively influence outcomes. Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, shares insights on the challenges of political dissent in Russia, drawing parallels with the U.S. political landscape, particularly regarding media control and authoritarianism. The episode highlights the critical stakes of the election, the Biden-Harris administration's accomplishments, and the implications of Trump's associations with authoritarian leaders, emphasizing the urgent need for voter mobilization and resistance against oppressive regimes.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Maddow: 'History is calling' as pivotal election season winds down) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_01
Really happy to have you here. So we are two weeks out from election day. It's two weeks from tomorrow. Well over 10 million Americans have already cast their ballots, myself included. It feels great to have voted. I highly recommend it.

00:00:15 Speaker_01
No feeling quite like it. But now we are getting close to the point where we are out of time for anything but voting. Whatever you want to be able to say you did,

00:00:27 Speaker_01
in this year's election, whatever you wanna be able to brag about someday in the future, whatever you wanna say you're proud you did when your country needed you, what you want your answer to be when somebody someday asks you what you did in 2024 when you were alive and American and fully aware that this was the highest stakes American election since 1940 and 1860.

00:00:54 Speaker_01
whatever you want to be able to brag about in terms of your contribution to this moment in American history, your contribution to this election, this election in which we are being asked to choose not just between one candidate and the other, we are being asked to choose between one system of government and another.

00:01:13 Speaker_01
Whatever you want your family lore about you to be for future generations of your family, when your family in future holidays, right, future family reunions, family get-togethers, when members of your family, generations yet to come, talk about you and what you did in the election that decided whether or not America was going to switch to a strongman, authoritarian state instead of the system we were born to and grew up in.

00:01:42 Speaker_01
Whatever you are going to do, it's what you're gonna do now and in these next two weeks. History is calling. So what are you gonna do?

00:01:55 Speaker_01
Whether it's calling voters in swing states, volunteering to knock on doors, volunteering to drive people to the polls, showing up at the local campaign office of your candidate or your cause and offering to do whatever needs doing at this late date.

00:02:10 Speaker_01
Just on your own, calling or texting everyone in your contact list, in your phone, asking everyone you know if they are registered to vote, if they need any help, getting to a polling place to cast that ballot, and can you please help them.

00:02:23 Speaker_01
I mean, whatever you want your bragging rights to be about doing your part, this is the last two weeks to do any of it. Voting is the bare minimum. You don't even get to brag about that.

00:02:36 Speaker_01
What else are you going to do on top of voting to help bring about the outcome that you want in this election? The answer to that question is whatever you sign up to do tonight and tomorrow, because we are otherwise out of time.

00:02:53 Speaker_01
Watching TV doesn't count. Worrying about polls doesn't count. Scrolling through your phone and doing nothing other than absorbing information does not count. It's time to actually do something. And really, it's now or never.

00:03:10 Speaker_01
One of the things that strongman leaders do when they do get control of a country is they shut down independent media.

00:03:17 Speaker_01
They make it a crime or they make it otherwise impossible for anybody to report or say or broadcast anything that is independent of the strongman or that is critical of the strongman.

00:03:29 Speaker_01
And that, of course, is not how the American system of government works. With our robust First Amendment and freedom of the press protections, that's not at all how we are set up as a government and as a country.

00:03:42 Speaker_01
But again, what's on the table from Republicans in this election is scrapping our system of government and instead doing it the strongman way instead.

00:03:53 Speaker_03
You say CBS should lose its license. Why? Sure. Well, I've never seen anything like it. The head of the FCC says we would never yank a license because a politician didn't like his or her coverage.

00:04:04 Speaker_04
Well, this isn't a politician. This is nothing. Wait a minute. Now, what we're doing is we're going to subpoena their records for 60 minutes. No, I think 60 minutes, I think it should be taken off the air, frankly.

00:04:17 Speaker_01
Frankly, I think it should be taken off the air. We're going to subpoena the records of this news organization. And we're going to take them off the air.

00:04:26 Speaker_01
This comes in the wake of that same candidate, Donald Trump, saying that ABC News should also have its broadcast license revoked.

00:04:36 Speaker_01
And it comes in the wake of that same candidate saying that this network, MSNBC and NBC News, should have its broadcast license revoked. And it comes on the heels of him saying that the head of Facebook should be put in prison.

00:04:49 Speaker_01
And it comes on the heels of him saying, just you wait, just you wait to see what he's gonna do to the New York Times. Wait until you see what I'm gonna do to them. This is not normal American stuff. This isn't American at all.

00:05:04 Speaker_01
This is strongman, authoritarian form of government stuff, which our Constitution protects us from explicitly. But he wants to get rid of all that. And he is saying if you vote for him, he will get rid of all that.

00:05:20 Speaker_01
Tonight, I'm really honored to say that we're going to be joined here in studio by the wife, the widow of Alexei Navalny. Alexei Navalny is somebody who we have covered a lot here on this program.

00:05:34 Speaker_01
After Alexei Navalny was locked up and then killed by Vladimir Putin's government in Russia, his wife, Yulia, has stepped up following her husband's death to herself lead the opposition to that country's strongman leader, to that country's dictator.

00:05:50 Speaker_01
She says she will defeat Vladimir Putin. She will step into her husband's shoes and lead the Russian opposition against that dictatorship.

00:06:01 Speaker_01
No small feat in a country where every single person known to be in opposition to Putin has been killed or imprisoned or exiled. Her husband was killed in February. Now Putin has put out a warrant for her arrest as well.

00:06:15 Speaker_01
But she is here with us here tonight. We're gonna speak with Yulia Navalny tonight about the challenge of standing in opposition, in leading opposition efforts in a country where the independent media has been eliminated.

00:06:30 Speaker_01
I mean, what Trump is proposing to do here in America to the media is what Putin, of course, has already done in Russia. In Russia, it is state-controlled media only. And that's the case everywhere. You've got an authoritarian in charge.

00:06:45 Speaker_01
That's the case everywhere you've got a dictatorship. That's the case everywhere, in most cases, you've got a monarchy. Any place you've got authoritarian leadership. In Saudi Arabia, the state-controlled media there includes Al Arabiya TV.

00:07:01 Speaker_01
You get a handy reminder of the fact that it's state-controlled media if you watch any of their clips online. Trump loves Saudi Arabia, right?

00:07:10 Speaker_01
One of the many under-reported things in the presidential campaign this year, I think, was that in the midst of our presidential campaign just this summer, Trump signed a deal to build Trump Tower Saudi Arabia. in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

00:07:24 Speaker_01
That is a huge real estate deal. That is the Saudi government doling out a huge financial favor to Trump while he is in the middle of his presidential campaign.

00:07:36 Speaker_01
They are expecting, presumably, that if he does get back into the White House, that huge personal financial favor they just did him will still be fresh in his mind when it comes to making American policy, American government policy towards Saudi Arabia.

00:07:51 Speaker_01
The Saudi royal family, you will recall, also stuffed $2 billion, billion with a B, $2 billion into the pockets of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as soon as he left the White House.

00:08:03 Speaker_01
The New York Times recently reporting that the Saudis have seen precisely zero return on that supposed investment in Jared Kushner.

00:08:11 Speaker_01
He's just kept all the money and skimmed out over $100 million in fees for himself while returning nothing to them, at least so far. But presumably that's because they're not expecting to be paid back by him.

00:08:26 Speaker_01
They're expecting to be paid back by the White House, by the American people. The Saudis don't seem to be all that eager to get any of that money back from old Jared because they know they'll get it back another way. From us.

00:08:43 Speaker_01
From policy at our expense to pay back the people who have paid him. So, the Trump relationship with Saudi Arabia is very well oiled.

00:08:54 Speaker_01
Honestly, if you wanted to create like a kindergarten level textbook, one of those books where the pages are cards, right? Card stock. If you wanted to create a kindergarten level textbook to explain to a kindergartner what corruption is, right?

00:09:07 Speaker_01
This is how you might spell it out. Now, imagine your friend is running for president. Somebody gives your friend a huge sweet business deal while he's running for president.

00:09:16 Speaker_01
And that same someone then gives your friend's family billions of dollars while he's running for president. C is for corruption. Your friend is corrupt.

00:09:28 Speaker_01
And then if it was like a good children's book, it would say, oh, but don't worry, this could never happen in the United States of America. Yeah, we'd have to update that textbook. But anyway, today, Al-Arabiya, Saudi state-controlled media,

00:09:44 Speaker_01
posted a new interview with Donald Trump. And this new interview with Donald Trump, it was just published today, it got basically zero pickup in the United States, which is kind of amazing, right?

00:09:55 Speaker_01
A presidential candidate interview gets zero pickup two weeks before election day.

00:10:03 Speaker_01
But I think the reason this interview didn't get any pickup might be because of the headline that Saudi state-controlled al-Arabiya slapped on the video when they posted it. on this, quote, Trump says Middle East peace possible if elected.

00:10:19 Speaker_01
Oh yes, that's what we're all expecting, right? Elect Donald Trump, what's gonna happen? Well, for starters, you'll get peace in the Middle East.

00:10:30 Speaker_01
It's evaded the geniuses of many generations, but that six-dimensional chess player will be able to sort it out. Yeah. Trump will bring about peace in the Middle East if he's elected.

00:10:46 Speaker_01
You will be surprised to learn that that was not the actual newsworthy takeaway from that interview with Saudi state-controlled media.

00:10:53 Speaker_01
What is the actual newsworthy takeaway from that interview is that in that interview, Trump just flat out said that there aren't hostages being held by Hamas. He says they're all dead.

00:11:06 Speaker_01
Imagine if you're the family member of one of these hostages who's been held for a year now by Hamas, and a presidential candidate in the United States comes out and says, yeah, well, they're pretty much all dead. Most of them are dead. Ah, well.

00:11:21 Speaker_01
That is what he said today. That is what he said.

00:11:25 Speaker_04
Now, still, you have hostages, but many of them have been killed, and I'm sure many of them are dead. I think even early on, I think a lot of those hostages were dead. I think they were dead.

00:11:38 Speaker_01
Imagine the cruelty of that. If you're the family of a hostage in Gaza, you've been working for a year now, desperately, to get your loved one out of there.

00:11:49 Speaker_01
Imagine you're the family of an American hostage held in Gaza, and you are counting, among other things, on the American government to do all it can to get your brother or your mother or your daughter out. alive as a hostage.

00:12:05 Speaker_01
And here's a man running to be president of the United States saying, yeah, I'm sure, you know, I'm sure they're all dead. I'm sure they're all dead.

00:12:17 Speaker_01
Trump also said in his al-Arabiya Saudi state-controlled media interview today that he would have done a deal with Hamas. That if Hamas wanted to do something like October 7th, Trump would have stepped in and done a deal with them.

00:12:31 Speaker_01
Right, so if you liked it when Trump invited the Taliban to come to Camp David, well now here he is two weeks before the presidential election saying if he were president again, he'd make deals with Hamas.

00:12:43 Speaker_01
And that's how he would have solved the October 7th problem.

00:12:47 Speaker_04
I would have made a deal with them and they wouldn't have done October 7th.

00:12:53 Speaker_01
You know, Michael Dukakis' presidential campaign cratered because he put on a helmet that made his head look like a little bean, made his face look short.

00:13:02 Speaker_01
Donald Trump pretended to work at a McDonald's this weekend while wearing this lovely ensemble, and then the next day he said, all the hostages are dead and I wanna do a deal with Hamas. But our election's 50-50. This is our election this year.

00:13:23 Speaker_01
Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned today in Pennsylvania and in Michigan and in Wisconsin with Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who was among the highest profile cross-party endorsers and supporters of Kamala Harris.

00:13:40 Speaker_01
Vice President Harris was also just endorsed by Republican Susan Ford Bales. Middle name is important there. She is the daughter of former Republican President Gerald Ford and a lifelong Republican.

00:13:55 Speaker_01
On mainstream economic issues, which the pundit world is always telling us is the bedrock of all normal election politicking, last week we talked about The Economist magazine going large this past week with its special report on the rip-roaring economy that the Biden-Harris administration is leaving in its wake.

00:14:11 Speaker_01
The Economist calling it literally the envy of the world. The U.S.

00:14:16 Speaker_01
economy, after four years of Biden and Harris, outpacing every other major industrialized economy in the world, blowing all economic expectations out of the water on growth, on the job market, on taming inflation, on wages, on manufacturing jobs, on household wealth for average American households.

00:14:33 Speaker_01
On top of that, entities like the Wall Street Journal now reporting on the fairly devastating economic expectations from Trump's policies.

00:14:40 Speaker_01
Economists telling the Journal in overwhelming numbers that Trump's policies will be terrible for inflation, terrible for the deficit, terrible for interest rates. Today you can add Social Security to that list.

00:14:53 Speaker_01
A new report from a non-partisan fiscal watchdog group setting off the alarm that what Trump is proposing economically will destroy Social Security within six years. Will end Social Security within six years. By the end of the decade.

00:15:13 Speaker_01
So the Harris-Walz campaign, you know, is doing normal things with a little more pizzazz than I'd say is usual, but normal campaigning, touring swing states with Republicans who are telling moderates and independents and even Republicans that they should cross over and vote not for the Republican but for the Democratic candidate this year.

00:15:34 Speaker_01
They've been doing campaign events with A-list celebrities like Lizzo and Usher and Stevie Wonder. And they're doing interviews with every media outlet you have ever heard of in your life.

00:15:45 Speaker_01
Kamala Harris' running mate Tim Walz sat down with the ladies of The View today. He's doing The Daily Show on Comedy Central tonight. What's Trump doing? He's telling rally audiences about the penis size of a famous golfer.

00:16:04 Speaker_01
announcing how he's gonna shut down American news organizations, he's canceling almost all of his interviews with American news organizations, and instead is talking to Saudi Arabian state-controlled media, to whom he has just announced that he wants to do a deal with Hamas, while also telling American families waiting for the return of their loved ones who are being held hostage that, yeah, as far as he's concerned, all those hostages are probably dead, don't bother.

00:16:35 Speaker_01
This is not a normal election between two normal candidates. If you want to know how this one is going to end, this is the time for you to make a difference as to how it is going to end. This is it, now or never. We'll be right back.

00:16:58 Speaker_01
In 2013, so 11 years ago, Donald Trump posted on Twitter about hosting the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. He said online, quote, do you think Putin will go to the pageant? If so, will he become my new best friend? What was that about?

00:17:18 Speaker_01
What grown man talks that way about anyone, let alone the president of Russia? But that was 2013. Two years later, Donald Trump entered the Republican primary contest for president on the night of the third presidential primary debate.

00:17:33 Speaker_01
We later learned that that same night, he secretly signed a letter of intent to build Trump Tower Moscow. which would have been the biggest real estate project of his entire life. He lied about that and kept that secret throughout the campaign.

00:17:47 Speaker_01
We didn't learn about it until after he had been elected president. While he was president, he insisted on meeting one-on-one with Vladimir Putin without any American staff present. And he did so on at least five different occasions.

00:18:03 Speaker_01
In at least one of those instances, in a 2017 meeting in Germany, Trump personally confiscated the notes that had been taken at that meeting by his own interpreter.

00:18:14 Speaker_01
Since leaving the presidency, Bob Woodward now reports that Trump has continued to have secret one-on-one communications with Vladimir Putin, not only refusing to report his communications to the U.S. government, which is arguably Illegal, anyway.

00:18:30 Speaker_01
But he's also not been allowing even his own staff to be nearby when he speaks with Putin. What about his communications with Putin needs to be so secret? Putin's government, of course, interfered in the U.S.

00:18:44 Speaker_01
election in 2016 to try to help Trump get elected. In the 2020 election, they ran a robust foreign influence operation to try to prevent Joe Biden from becoming Trump's Democratic opponent.

00:18:56 Speaker_01
Now, in 2024, Russia is just flat-out paying pro-Trump conservative commentators in the United States as part of yet another large Russian state-sponsored effort to try to help Donald Trump's campaign.

00:19:11 Speaker_01
We have a hard time in the United States calling whatever is going on with Donald Trump and the Republican Party, we have a hard time calling it authoritarianism. We get nervous about the word, the idea of authoritarianism.

00:19:26 Speaker_01
We get nervous about what that might mean here in a domestic context.

00:19:31 Speaker_01
But we can all at least agree that Trump does have some kind of weird freaking relationship, a servile, almost worshipful relationship with somebody who everyone in America can agree is an authoritarian, if not a fascist dictator, Vladimir Putin.

00:19:50 Speaker_01
And that admiration that Trump has for Putin is as inexplicable as ever. It's undimmed by the passing of years.

00:20:00 Speaker_01
And more explicitly now than ever before, it extends not just to Trump personally wanting Putin to like him, personally, seemingly, Trump wanting to be like Putin, but now it explicitly seems to extend to Trump wanting our country, the United States, to be more like Russia is under Putin's control.

00:20:21 Speaker_01
So, in this campaign for president, what we hear from Trump is that news organizations should not be allowed to air criticism of him or to air interviews with his opponents. He will shut those news organizations down when he is back in power.

00:20:36 Speaker_01
We hear from him that Democratic politicians should not be allowed to run against him, and they're all criminals. We hear from him that portions of the U.S. Constitution should be terminated.

00:20:46 Speaker_01
We hear from him that businesses that don't do what he wants will be crushed when he is back in power. He says, let's withdraw from NATO. Let's let Russia do, quote, whatever the hell it wants to our allies.

00:20:59 Speaker_01
Let's use the military against American civilians who dare to protest against him. Vladimir Putin has been in power in Russia for 25 years. Russia is the largest country in the world.

00:21:14 Speaker_01
It has almost infinite economic potential, particularly during this last 25 years.

00:21:19 Speaker_01
It is a country of fantastic natural resources, an almost unparalleled legacy of cultural and scientific achievement, a country whose enemies, frankly, mostly dissolved with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

00:21:36 Speaker_01
The horizons were endless, possibilities limitless. But under Vladimir Putin, Russia, again, a country that covers a tenth of the world's landmass, Russia has an economy smaller than Italy's.

00:21:50 Speaker_01
Russia's per capita GDP is lower than Bulgaria, lower than Mexico, lower than Guyana. And why is that?

00:21:59 Speaker_01
Well, while Russia languishes as a country, its criminal elite, connected to Putin, they buy up luxury real estate and yachts and private jets and vineyards and resorts and private islands all over the world, including here.

00:22:16 Speaker_01
And Putin himself, long rumored to be the world's richest man, he builds himself palaces like this one on the Black Sea. Authoritarianism isn't just a textbook term in political science. And it isn't just dystopian, right?

00:22:35 Speaker_01
It isn't just cruel and repressive. It is also always corrupt and therefore pitiful. And everyone in the world deserves better. And in a better world, it would not be Vladimir Putin right now. It would be this man who would be the president of Russia.

00:22:54 Speaker_01
the head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Russia.

00:22:58 Speaker_01
A man who made that video that I just showed you, showing Putin's secret palace on the Black Sea, along with so many other damning and incredibly newsworthy and incredibly well-researched investigative reports on the secret wealth of Putin and his henchmen, who have spent the last 25 years robbing that country blind.

00:23:20 Speaker_01
His name is Alexei Navalny, and he is the most effective and inspiring opposition figure of modern Russia.

00:23:28 Speaker_01
And Alexei Navalny's leadership has been characterized by a refusal to be afraid, a relentless sense of humor, and an even more relentless commitment to the certainty that Putin's regime will end.

00:23:46 Speaker_01
that there will be a Russia without Putin, that it's inevitable that the lies will collapse in on themselves, that the party of crooks and thieves, Putin's party, will finally be thrown out. The inevitable certainty that democracy is coming.

00:24:02 Speaker_01
They started arresting Alexei Navalny in 2011, and they never really stopped. They tried to blind him in chemical attacks, twice. They banned him from running for office. They banned his organization.

00:24:17 Speaker_01
They ultimately gave it the same classification as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. They arrested and imprisoned his younger brother. They arrested his colleagues. They arrested even his lawyers. And then this year, this February, they killed him in prison.

00:24:36 Speaker_01
His wife, Yulia, survives him. They've now put out an arrest warrant for her as well. She lives in exile because she has to. Alexei Navalny was the man who should be the president of a free, democratic Russia right now, in 2024.

00:24:51 Speaker_01
After his death, now, instead, it should be his wife.

00:24:56 Speaker_01
In some ways, it is his wife, Yulia Navalny, continuing the investigations into the corruption of the authoritarian regime that still rules her country, leading not yet a government, but for now, the people of that country, who aren't just yearning to be free from that stupid kleptocratic dictatorship, but leading the people who are actively working to get free and to prepare to live in a democracy instead, because the certainty remains that it is coming.

00:25:27 Speaker_01
And for us, for people all around the world, including here in the United States, who aren't trying to overthrow a dictatorship, who instead are trying to stop the authoritarian takeover of our existing democratic system, well, this woman, this Yulia Navalny seems like one of the most important people in the world who we could meet at the crossroads.

00:25:50 Speaker_01
Yulia Navalnaya is a Russian opposition leader. She is the wife, now the widow, of Alexei Navalny. Navalny's secret prison diaries and his memoir are somehow miraculously being published this week. The book is called Patriot, a Memoir.

00:26:04 Speaker_01
I read every word of the book. I could not put it down. Yulia Navalnaya, it is a real honor to have you here. Thank you.

00:26:10 Speaker_00
Hello, Rachel. Thank you for having me. It's a great honor, and thank you for your kind words. It means a lot.

00:26:17 Speaker_01
I will tell you, we're in the midst of a very heated election season in this country, as you know. And my confession to you is that I did not intend to read all of the book. I thought, I am not going to have time. I'm really busy.

00:26:30 Speaker_01
I'm going to read the beginning and the end, have other people read it and tell me what it's about. I read every word of it. I couldn't stop reading it. I found it incredibly moving. Thank you.

00:26:40 Speaker_01
Can you tell me a little bit about what it took to get the book into print? I imagine that you had to have a hand in editing the manuscript.

00:26:49 Speaker_01
I imagine there may have been some hard decisions for you in terms of things that felt personal that you might have wanted to keep between you and your husband that you nevertheless put in the book. What was it like to bring it to fruition?

00:27:01 Speaker_00
It's very important for me. This book is memory of my husband, his legacy. And that's why it was difficult in some ways to put some parts together. But I would say to you that we didn't cut a lot in editing.

00:27:25 Speaker_00
No, I think that everything what was in this book, it was true. And I wanted to keep Alexei's voice to sound loud and to sound open. his voice to bring the truth.

00:27:42 Speaker_01
One of the things he writes about that's very moving is how much your support meant to him and how much it made him more capable as a leader and as an activist to know that you were with him, that you agreed with him, that you already agreed with him before he'd ever had a chance to talk to you about it.

00:28:04 Speaker_01
He talks about it very movingly when he's been poisoned with a nerve agent, he's got Nearly three weeks in a coma in Germany. They very nearly kill him. And he writes movingly about how your presence was a neurobiological miracle.

00:28:21 Speaker_01
It was the only thing that brought him back. And the thing that I thought about that, preparing to talk to you today, is that in many ways you've stepped into his shoes. You're the leader of the Russian opposition. Because he can't be anymore.

00:28:35 Speaker_01
But who can be that role for you? Who can support you the way that you supported him?

00:28:42 Speaker_00
Thank you. Everything what you are saying is a compliment. And it's very nice to hear it. I think you called me the leader of opposition a little bit in advance. I would call myself a young politician, probably in some ways.

00:28:57 Speaker_00
Of course, I knew about politics a lot because I've been living with the leader, a real leader of opposition for many years. But I promise I will do my best.

00:29:10 Speaker_00
And it's very important for me in many reasons, and for my country, and for my family, and for my children, and for Alexis's memory. Who supported me?

00:29:22 Speaker_00
I think that it's the main problem because of course we supported each other and it was very easy for him and very easy for me in some very difficult moments because you know after all these searches we can go to lie down on the bed just touching our hands and it was like very helpful

00:29:52 Speaker_00
And I miss it a lot. And I'm doing all these interviews, meetings and everything. What I wish a lot to come back home every evening and to discuss everything with him.

00:30:10 Speaker_00
Even when he was in prison, to write him a letter telling what's going on in my life. But still, I think that love to him, love to country. All the supporters who supported Alexei and who support me now, they give me power.

00:30:36 Speaker_00
And I appreciate all these kind words, a lot of letters of support from many, many people.

00:30:47 Speaker_01
Alexei writes in the book that When the regime started arresting him and imprisoning him, he says they had two aims. And the first was to hurt his ability to work. He says, when you're in prison, it's hard to get your work done.

00:31:02 Speaker_01
And even when you're under house arrest, it's hard to get your work done. And when he was obviously a very committed candidate for office. I found it very moving that he wrote about not wanting to be a protest or symbolic candidate.

00:31:14 Speaker_01
He wanted to be a candidate who would win. He believed in democracy and wanted to make people's votes really count for something.

00:31:20 Speaker_01
So, to stop his work, the other reason for arresting him and charging him with the things they charged him with was to undercut his message.

00:31:28 Speaker_01
He's obviously an anti-corruption crusader, so they would charge him with things that would make him seem like, oh, he's the corrupt one.

00:31:35 Speaker_01
It seems to me, though, that the other reason that they were—there's a third aim in arresting him and imprisoning him, which is to break down other people's will, to make an example of him so that what happened to him would scare other people.

00:31:53 Speaker_01
Especially after what has happened to him, and what has happened to the media, and what has happened to the opposition, and what has happened with Russia during the Ukraine war, which has made everything worse.

00:32:03 Speaker_01
Do you still believe that the collapse of the regime is inevitable, and that Russia will be democratic one day?

00:32:10 Speaker_00
Of course, how could I not believe? Alexei sacrificed all his life for this, and I feel like I must continue his work. I feel like I must continue what he did for many, many years. It's very important for me, and I believe that

00:32:32 Speaker_00
You know, all these changes, they very often happen in one day. It doesn't mean that we need to sit down in a chair and to wait them one day to another day. Of course, we need to do something, but it doesn't mean that we need

00:32:49 Speaker_00
to expect from people to do every day huge things, just to do every day something small to encourage people, to motivate people, to show them that we are all together against this regime, against war, against Putin, especially.

00:33:12 Speaker_00
And we are together in this aim.

00:33:14 Speaker_01
I apologize for asking you an American-centered question. We have this big, very high-stakes election right now. I know. You're aware? I know.

00:33:28 Speaker_01
I do think that the relationship, the sort of admiration that the Republican candidate Donald Trump has for Putin is inexplicable, and it's undimmed, it hasn't changed at all.

00:33:40 Speaker_01
I do think that he is proposing that the United States should drop our form of government and adopt something more like what Putin has done to Russia, and if we choose him

00:33:51 Speaker_01
As our president, that means that America has freely and of our own free will, electively chosen that kind of a change for us as a country. And we might do it. I don't know what's going to happen in this election.

00:34:05 Speaker_01
From your vantage point, how does that strike you? What do you think about the fact that America may choose that as its future?

00:34:14 Speaker_00
I hope that America will do the right choice. And I believe in democratic institutions. I still think that. I know that you have a lot of conversations and they still work or not, but comparing to Russia, I can be just jealous that you are having

00:34:37 Speaker_00
such things like independent court, independent media, you can criticize candidates on TV and so I'm sure that America will do the right choice and everything will be fine.

00:34:54 Speaker_01
You've had some interaction, I know, in particular with Vice President Kamala Harris. When you were named one of the world's most influential people by Time Magazine, she wrote the write-up about you.

00:35:04 Speaker_01
What have your interactions with her been like, and do you feel like she understands the stakes of what you're fighting for?

00:35:10 Speaker_00
Last time I spoke with her on 1st of August, by phone. She called me after a prisoner swap. which happened between America, Germany and Russia and I really appreciate it.

00:35:27 Speaker_00
It was very warm, very private and personal talk and she told me that she remembered what my husband and my family did and are doing to make Russia a democratic country.

00:35:45 Speaker_00
And of course, I very appreciate that exactly at this day she called me, and it means for me a lot.

00:35:54 Speaker_01
Last question for you. I think it means a lot to the world that Patriot, a memoir, Alexei's prison diaries, but also his memoir are out now. It's a remarkable book. As I said, I did not intend to read all of it. I did not have time.

00:36:13 Speaker_01
He really messed me up. It took a lot to get this out into the world. A lot of risk and a lot of effort. It is a remarkable document. What do you want people to take away from this?

00:36:29 Speaker_01
What do you think is the most important thing for people to know about this book?

00:36:34 Speaker_00
There are two parts. I want people to be encouraged by this book not to give up, not continue fight because as you know now in the world there are more and more authoritarian regimes. Yes. And Alexei is a great example that people never give up.

00:36:54 Speaker_00
Even in prison, even in torturing conditions they continue their fight, even fight because he was fighting even from prison.

00:37:05 Speaker_00
But also, of course, people will know my husband, that he was a great man, that he was very kind, very funny, and very beloved person.

00:37:21 Speaker_01
His sense of humor and his creativity, even under duress, to me is inspiring. And I don't know

00:37:29 Speaker_01
other resistance leaders of my generation and my time that bring that to it in a way that really made me think in a completely different way about what it means to stand up for freedom, stand up for freedom of choice.

00:37:43 Speaker_01
Yulia Navalny, it is a real honor to have you here, and I wish all the best for you. I just hope doors open for you everywhere, and I wish all the best for you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

00:37:59 Speaker_01
So Tim Miller used to be a really big deal in Republican politics. He was the spokesman for the RNC, for the National Republican Party. You now know him as an MSNBC analyst. He hosts a podcast at The Bulwark.

00:38:11 Speaker_01
And Tim Miller recently unearthed this tape that he published at The Bulwark.

00:38:16 Speaker_01
This is a Republican donor and rich guy named David Sachs and two other Silicon Valley zillionaires talking on their podcast two days after January 6th, two days after the Trump mob attack on Congress on January 6th. Watch.

00:38:34 Speaker_05
I don't hear anybody defending the storming of the Capitol. Is Trump responsible? Yes. I mean, clearly 100% 100%. Yes. If you want to see that this mob is a gun, I think he loaded the gun.

00:38:47 Speaker_05
He pointed it in a certain direction, but I think most of his political career. I think he's disqualified himself from being a candidate at a national level.

00:38:57 Speaker_02
I would rather take every single person arrested and give them zero days in jail and add it all up and give it to Trump. It was just perverted by this scumbag. Yep. He is a complete piece of scumbag. He's garbage. Wow. That's satisfying.

00:39:17 Speaker_01
Two days after January 6th. Trump has disqualified himself from being a candidate, says David Sachs. He should get all the prison time that anybody's going to get for that riot. He's a complete piece of swear word, swear word scumbag. He's garbage.

00:39:33 Speaker_01
So that was two days after January 6th. That was 2021. Not that long ago.

00:39:38 Speaker_01
Now, this year, two of those same guys hosted a lavish fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco and have since become two of Trump's biggest boosters in the 2024 election from the business and tech world.

00:39:52 Speaker_01
Leaders of a group of super wealthy, eccentric, right-wing Silicon Valley guys who have just poured money into getting Trump back into the White House, right?

00:40:02 Speaker_01
It's a real turn in a very short amount of time from Trump is disqualified, he should be jailed indefinitely, he's a scumbag, he's garbage, to multi-million dollar fundraisers at my house.

00:40:16 Speaker_01
And constant praise and they're all in to get Trump back into the White House. The tech billionaire class is really distinguishing itself in terms of its principles at this time in American history. But none more so than this one.

00:40:31 Speaker_01
Tonight, the Washington Post reporting that multiple Republican officials have just written to the U.S. Justice Department asking for help with this guy.

00:40:39 Speaker_01
Quote, former Republican lawmakers, advisors, and Justice Department officials have called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate tech billionaire Elon Musk for awarding cash prizes to voters in swing states as part of his support for Trump's candidacy.

00:40:58 Speaker_01
Immigrant from South Africa, defense contractor, world's richest man, Elon Musk, is so committed to getting Trump reelected, he's basically funding and running Trump's get-out-the-vote operation in swing states to decidedly mixed reviews thus far.

00:41:14 Speaker_01
Now, there are questions as to whether Elon Musk and his eagerness may have crossed the line into lawbreaking. Musk is offering a daily prize of $1 million that he says is available only to registered voters in battleground states.

00:41:29 Speaker_01
If you register to vote in a swing state and you sign a meaningless, non-binding Elon Musk petition, that makes you eligible for Elon Musk to give you a million dollars, which he says he's going to do to someone every day until the election as part of supporting Trump's campaign.

00:41:46 Speaker_01
The problem is, very explicit, very simple federal law prohibits paying or offering to pay anyone to vote or paying or offering to pay somebody to register to vote.

00:42:01 Speaker_01
Lots of election law experts are now saying what Elon Musk is doing here is pretty blatantly illegal. Breaking this particular federal law is supposed to get you five years in prison. Thus far, the U.S.

00:42:11 Speaker_01
Justice Department is declining to say whether it is investigating or not, but he is doing this every day now. TikTok, watch this space. Imagine being a U.S.

00:42:26 Speaker_01
Senator and having all your state's biggest newspapers come out against you, basically all at once, while you're running for re-election. That is the dream that Senator Ted Cruz has been living over the past few days.

00:42:40 Speaker_01
As of this weekend, all five of the biggest newspapers in Texas have endorsed Ted Cruz's Democratic opponent, Colin Allred.

00:42:50 Speaker_01
And we could call that the biggest embarrassment suffered by a senator at the hands of his home state newspapers in some time, but there's stiff competition for that right now.

00:42:59 Speaker_01
Last week in Missouri, for example, Republican Senator Josh Hawley not only saw the St. Louis Post-Dispatch endorse his challenger, Democratic candidate Lucas Kuntz, but Senator Hawley managed to flank that endorsement with distinction.

00:43:14 Speaker_01
The Post-Dispatch wrote, quote, for reasons above and beyond any partisan considerations, Josh Hawley is quite possibly the worst sitting senator in America right now. That's the biggest paper in Josh Hawley's home state.

00:43:29 Speaker_01
This is supposed to be a year when Republicans are favored to take over the Senate, but this is also a year when Republicans are running a string of beleaguered, scandal-ridden, and unpopular candidates in states they need to win, while Democrats are showing they've got a chance in some very unlikely places.

00:43:46 Speaker_01
One of the best hopes for a Democratic upset is in Texas. Colin Allred, fresh off that string of blockbuster endorsements from all the biggest papers in Texas, he's gonna be on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell right after this show.

00:43:59 Speaker_01
Watch this space. Two quick things before I go. First of all, there is much more of my interview with Yulia Navalny than we were able to show you tonight. We're gonna put the whole thing on YouTube, including her very pointed message to the U.S.

00:44:15 Speaker_01
about what we're doing wrong when it comes to Vladimir Putin. If you go to madoblog.com, you can find that, again, the whole thing posted uncut on YouTube. Also, tomorrow night, Alex Wagner is doing a special from Philly.

00:44:27 Speaker_01
She's been talking with black voters. She's been following Senator John Fetterman as he campaigns for Harris. in Pennsylvania, Republican strongholds. It's gonna be really good. It's tomorrow night, 9 p.m. Eastern, right here on MSNBC.

00:44:40 Speaker_01
All right, that does it for me for now.