The Beat With Ari Melber 4/13/26 — MSNBC Breaking News Today April 13, 2026

[0:00] Your developments on the home front inside the United States tonight, this news breaking late [0:04] in the day. Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell announces he's not only discontinued his campaign [0:10] but is resigning from Congress following several credible allegations of sexual assault. We have [0:17] more on that this hour. We're also following what can only be described as a feud between [0:23] President Trump and the Pope. Backlash for a bizarre and some say blasphemous post where [0:28] Donald Trump compared himself to Jesus, a president who's often described as not backing [0:34] down, has already deleted the odd post. We're going to get into that. And a major defeat for [0:41] a strong man who has pushed the limits of autocracy abroad. We have the report on that and why it is [0:48] also a blow to Putin and Trump. Andrew Weissman is here as well as we look at safeguarding legal [0:56] protections going into the midterms where the Republicans are increasingly acting like they're [1:00] bracing for a route. So we're really following a lot of major stories. One of those nights where [1:06] you could start any number of places. But with Donald Trump continuing and in some ways escalating [1:11] aspects of the war with Iran, we begin there. The United States has begun a Trump-led blockade [1:17] of the Iranian ports. This is around the Strait of Hormuz. This comes after the peace talks did not [1:23] deliver peace or a breakthrough. Vice President Vance, of course, had led those talks over the [1:27] weekend for the United States side. Those talks were seen by Donald Trump as a potential off-ramp [1:32] when he didn't get what he wanted after his threats, if you remember all that last week. [1:36] And there was a ceasefire to lead to the talks. Well, now we have more than 15 U.S. warships in place. [1:42] They are operating to prevent ships from leaving or entering. We are kind of doing a version [1:48] of what Iran is doing, a point that has been observed by many experts wondering where exactly [1:55] this all leads. Indeed, you don't have to have a satirical website like The Onion or wait for the [2:02] late-night comics to get a hold of this tonight because mainstream outlets and foreign policy [2:06] experts are already calling it something that might have occurred to you as someone who follows [2:11] the news or this war. They're calling it Trump's blockade of a blockade because the issue that had [2:17] spiked prices and caused so much pain for the U.S. putting pressure on Trump's policy was that [2:22] Iran was already blockading most ships from moving through this same body of water, this [2:28] strait. The U.S. now doing it. Remember, it's not exactly our backyard. And given the history and us [2:33] choosing to bomb Iran, this does play out as an escalation because the U.S. is stepping up to block [2:39] everything there. Trump wants other countries to join in, but the president who started this war [2:45] without allies apparently will be waging parts of this war without allies. The Times reporting there [2:50] are no takers for that mission as of tonight. Trump's patience may be wearing thin. The administration [2:57] is also looking at limited strikes as a way to break a stalemate. That's from The Wall Street Journal. [3:02] The blockade bringing U.S. ships into striking distance of Iran's missiles and drones. And that raises [3:08] the risk where American military are now in harm's way. Our personnel are out there. We're close to Iran. [3:15] The fact that we have limited their ability to hit us on the home front over in the U.S. and near [3:20] the continental U.S. is not comfort when we are now operating there. Experts also describe this as a [3:28] kind of game of chicken where Iran would seem to have an upper hand because, and this is partly a [3:35] criticism of the Iranian government and its failures, but the fact is Iran and its people have endured a [3:41] lot more pain economic and otherwise than the American public. And so The Times says if this is [3:47] a showdown over who can endure more pain, Donald Trump's policies and the American economy may not [3:53] be set up for success there. Also, this will increase oil prices rise and it will deepen the drag on the [4:00] global economy. Remember, before the blockade, oil was spiking again. It's been around $100 per barrel. [4:06] A lot of the positives that we've seen in the energy markets involve the assumption or call it a hope [4:11] that Donald Trump will not wage this war for months on end. But the way he's acting, the way he's [4:18] escalating and the erratic behavior, which some of his own allies and former aides say reflects an [4:24] untenable mental decline for the sitting president. That's me quoting them. We can get over to the [4:29] independent experts or the critics or the doctors, but we've had Trump allies speaking out and [4:33] another story from The Times crossing on that point today. Well, that erraticism, that unreliability [4:39] of the commander in chief does conflict with the market's best hope that this will just work itself [4:44] out. As for the price of oil heading up, Donald Trump, who on his better political days, if you [4:52] look at the last, say, 10 years, has been at times an effective communicator or really a kind of resilient [5:00] liar, someone who just says what needs to be said for political purposes. That Donald Trump is [5:05] fading into one who courts blasphemy debates and upsets the Christian population of the United [5:11] States and around the world and upsets the Muslim population around the world and just does things [5:15] that aren't adding up very straight. So I say that by way of introduction to the president's answer [5:20] on Fox News about whether the price of oil will go up and stay up heading into the midterms. [5:27] So do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections? [5:33] I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be. It could be or the same or maybe a little bit higher, [5:37] but it should be around the same. A little bit higher is not what the host was looking for. [5:45] You can see Maria's eyebrows literally raised as she watches a president commit what is a gaffe. [5:52] Of course, a phone call where he admits that his policies are driving up prices on Americans, [5:57] which breaks his campaign promises, is only one of several gaffes, errors, or outright failures [6:03] affecting America. Indeed, if this were the only thing and this were a different political era, [6:09] a president saying that, that they raise gas prices and they're going to go up even higher [6:13] by the next election, that itself would be its own big thing. But we have to pick among that and the [6:18] many other scandals and problems dogging Donald Trump. Anger over the war and the higher prices [6:23] are part of why Republicans have been retiring. Now, that's not always the most fascinating story, [6:29] right? You have to be kind of a news or politics junkie to keep track and care about a retirement rate [6:34] in Congress going up or down. But we reported, as did others, about that because that was one of those [6:40] clear indicators that some Republican incumbents who already have the job basically are sure they [6:46] would lose it and would rather not lose it. They'd rather say they're retiring and go work on their [6:50] next job or their lobbyist offers in D.C., that kind of thing. That is the context for what the [6:57] Republicans who are still running are facing if they're willing to talk to Republican voters, [7:02] not all voters, just in red districts, incumbent Republicans and other candidates [7:06] facing these kind of scenes. As the conflict in the Middle East comes to an end, [7:14] you're going to see, you're going to see oil prices come back down. The fact is that the [7:22] president is well within his authority to conduct the strikes that have been conducted. Donald Trump [7:31] won the election. The Republican Party and you are enabling him. You're all cowards. [7:41] That's just a sample of that Republican being addressed as a, quote, coward. And credit to those [7:47] willing to face voters, which is what you're supposed to do if you're in office. At least he's trying to [7:51] talk to them. The even larger, quote, cowards, if you buy that critique, would be the ones ducking [7:56] all together. But what you see there in just the moment we showed you is the talking point of the [8:01] party is that oil prices are going down, not up. Donald Trump just contradicted that claim. The war is [8:11] unpopular, obviously. And the way that Republicans are trying to stand with Donald Trump's claims, [8:17] delusions and propaganda about a war that clearly was chosen by this administration and is raising [8:24] prices and has not worked and now involves tonight a greater commitment of troops in harm's way and [8:30] ships in harm's way in Iran to do the blockading that Iran was already doing doesn't make a lot of [8:36] sense. You can look at the polling and majority of the country says they're angry about this war, [8:42] 57 percent. A larger group says stressed. And if you just ask people if they're worried, well, that's [8:48] a huge, huge number, 68 percent. That includes, by definition, statistically, a lot of people who have [8:54] voted for Trump in the past. That is the scene we face as we bring in our experts on the politics. [9:00] We have Jason Johnson, MSNOW political contributor and professor. And on the national security front, [9:04] Brian Kutoulos has worked with the NSC, the State Department and DOD. He is a senior fellow at the [9:09] Middle East Institute. Welcome to both of you. Jason, we'll get to you on the politics. I don't think [9:15] it's the hardest questions you face tonight. Why GOP politics bad? Why voters angry? That kind of thing. [9:23] Brian, we'll start with you on the more serious footing, which is what does a blockade of a blockade [9:29] mean and what is the outlook in the region? All right. Thanks for having me on. Let's be straight [9:34] here. This problem that Donald Trump's trying to fix in the Strait of Hormuz was a problem that did [9:40] not exist on February 27th before he launched the war. And that's a key problem here and a key issue. [9:47] He keeps on using military tactics and our most precious national security resources, [9:53] which are our men and women in uniform, and putting them in harm's way without a strategy. [9:57] We essentially have strikes without strategy. In this instance, an operation, we don't know that [10:02] it will work. And that's driving up prices at the gas pump and at the grocery store for all of us. [10:09] And the real risk here, you mentioned he's the commander in chief. He's also just an improv performer [10:14] in chief. He's sort of making things up as he goes along. In part, if you remember before the war [10:19] and in the early days, he couldn't really articulate a clear end goal and objective. It was like a game [10:26] of three-card Monte. He was ever shifting the goalposts and he continues to do that. And that's a risky [10:32] situation going back to the troops, to the troops that are in the field right now, that you can't [10:35] just solve this with tactics. You need smart diplomacy, which is not what we had on display in Islamabad [10:41] this past weekend. Right. Jason? So here's the thing. Blocking a blockade, it's a hat on a hat. [10:49] It doesn't make sense. You can make an economic argument, right? Because Iran for the last month [10:55] has been charging people to get to the Strait of Hormuz. They're charging people like two million bucks [10:59] and maybe they were going to put the price up. But here's the thing. You could charge one million, [11:03] two million, three million, four. It doesn't matter. At some point, somebody needs to tell Donald Trump, [11:08] you don't know what you're doing. And he keeps trying to shift things back and forth. [11:13] And the problem is there are people who are willing to pay the price to get through Iran's blockade [11:19] that are going to be frustrated by our blockade on top of that blockade. So it is an absolute mess [11:24] of strategy and makes absolutely no sense. And it has damages, not just in this country, [11:28] but the global economy. Brian, here's what the president said about it today. [11:34] Mr. President, as far as the naval blockade is concerned, what's the end game? Is it to force [11:41] Iran back to the negotiating table? Is it to open up the straits so that gas prices ultimately come [11:47] down? Maybe everything. I mean, both of those things, certainly, and more. [11:50] Brian, it gives you the echoes of sort of the real estate deal guy, the tycoon, the build the wall, [12:00] the reality show. It's this, it's that, it's more. But all of this is being tested in reality in the [12:06] days ahead. I mean, how long can he blockade a blockade? And if he doesn't get Iran to give in, [12:12] which the Times and others are saying is tough, then what? [12:17] Yeah. So before I get back to the blockade on the blockade, just remember a few short days ago, [12:22] President Trump suggested that we might be collecting tolls with the Iranian regime, [12:29] an Ayatollah booth, I call it, or a piracy pact between the United States and Iran, which nobody on [12:35] his team, I think, was prepared when those words came out of his mouth. Flash forward to today, [12:40] what I'm most worried about is somebody who lived in the region, worked on it for 30 years, [12:44] is we're putting our sailors and soldiers in harm's way. And what I'm watching is whether, A, [12:50] there's any reaction from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which is the most dangerous force in the [12:56] region, and then, B, whether this actually produces results, right? The straits are not open. [13:02] They've not been for a month and a half. And the longer they stay closed, it's going to be costlier [13:08] for all of us, at the grocery store, at the gas pump. And the key missing link here is that he's [13:15] not, as the commander-in-chief, he's not articulated the endgame, which is the thing we should have [13:20] learned from more than 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is how you get stuck in a quagmire, [13:25] when you don't have your leadership actually being crystal clear. And in that clip you just played, [13:30] Ari, I didn't hear a commander-in-chief who's very crystal clear about where we're going here. [13:35] Yeah, Jason, I mean, it actually is true. It's not a burn. It's just true that a politician, [13:44] Donald Trump, who's lied more than anyone, seems to not even be good at lying anymore. He's lost it. [13:52] He doesn't have it. So the GOP message is, we're going to sell lower gas prices. Give us time. [13:58] Now, that's messaging. It's not a full-blown lie. We can just say it's their hope. And he, [14:03] as we showed tonight, can't even land that pitch. He is posting praise be Allah. Most presidents, [14:12] if they did that, it would require some explanation and make you wonder what's going on. He follows [14:17] that up with comparing himself to Jesus, a post that he deleted, because he very quickly had to [14:23] back down and take it back. You can say, oh, this isn't a president who says sorry. Well, [14:27] to him, deleting a precious post like that is as close as he gets. [14:32] What does it say to you, Jason, that we are watching a performance in decline? [14:36] Yeah, I think that's the thing that Republicans have been trying to avoid admitting to themselves [14:44] for a long time, that the president, whatever it is that he had, whether you liked it or not, [14:48] he ain't really got it anymore. And on top of that, the rest of the world sees it. And whether that's in [14:53] the form of supporting Viktor Orban and he doesn't have power, whether it's making threats [14:58] that people no longer believe in, it is, we're in a bizarre world where a country that the United [15:03] States is bombing is mocking the president with AI Lego videos, right? Like that, that is a sign of [15:09] disrespect that you could not imagine occurring to any other president in history, let alone the [15:13] fact that we're having a conversation about AI videos and Lego. So the president's ability to have [15:19] an aura around him is gone. The president's strategy is almost non-existent and the president's [15:24] planning is so unclear from day in and day out. We used to, you know, usually when the military [15:30] attacks, there's like no reasonable that we know exactly what we're going to do and where we're [15:33] going to go. Nobody knows that from day to day and therefore people can't even execute whatever [15:37] plans he's got. Yeah, yeah, it's really something, the world we're in here. Brian and Jason, [15:43] my thanks to both of you. Coming up, Andrew Weissman is here on the legal ways to safeguard the midterms. [15:49] MAGA rattled as we watched that Orban loss over in Hungary, something Jason just [15:55] referenced. JD Vance was there, but obviously didn't help enough to save that autocrat. [16:00] Meanwhile, Trump backpedaling on the big story I mentioned, really unbelievably unusual, [16:06] even by our current times, the Jesus post and the attack on the pope. The president of the United [16:24] States is in a lot of trouble for fighting with the pope and comparing himself to Jesus. This is the [16:30] actual news tonight, and it is one that, one debate or controversy that's affecting Donald [16:37] Trump at home and abroad. Feuding with the pope is not popular. Trump going after Pope Leo online [16:43] because the pope had called for peace, which quite frankly is a very pope thing to do, [16:48] and that was seen as a rebuke of Trump's choice to attack Iran. Moments later, he posted an AI-generated [16:56] image that you see right here. We don't often show all of the things that Trump posts on true social, [17:01] but I want to make sure you see this with your own eyes so you can make sense of it. There are all [17:05] these sort of AI propaganda visuals that go out, and people have different views about their role or [17:11] efficacy. But from a religious viewpoint, this was deeply offensive to many people in our country and [17:18] around the world. This is what, to many Christians, is seen as total blasphemy. Donald Trump posted it, [17:25] obviously had his own reasons for that, but we've seen a lot of prominent individuals, including in [17:31] MAGA, describe this as reprehensible, saying it's blasphemy, that faith is no prop, that it crosses the [17:36] line. One longtime Trump ally posting, God will not be mocked online. And as I mentioned earlier in our [17:44] coverage, we hear a lot of things from Trump and his allies that aren't really true. They just [17:49] continue this sort of spin. And one of them, I'm sure you've heard a lot as well, he doesn't back [17:53] down, he doesn't apologize. That's not true. He backs down when he is attacked or confronted in a [18:00] consistent way, and especially by other people who don't back down. So I'm liking that to the approach [18:05] you need for bullies. And so while Trump has been all over the place on these issues, I mentioned his [18:11] Praise Allah post as well. He deleted this post. He might not want you to know that, but we showed [18:16] you the post. It's no longer on Truth Social. He deleted it. Then later, facing the cameras, [18:20] he went after the Pope again. I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo. He's a man that doesn't think that [18:29] we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world. [18:36] I'm not, I'm not a fan of Pope Leo. And that brings us to, again, a strange chapter in a [18:44] region where the United States has all sorts of religious sensitivities. And [18:48] past presidents have made a point to try to be respectful and serious about all of the different [18:53] world religions that are involved in the Middle East. Indeed, when you have a war that's being [18:58] waged right now that involves Iran, Israel, and a lot of other parties affected, you are dealing with [19:04] all the monotheistic religions. You are dealing with Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. And so for the [19:09] United States, it is a net negative to be seen as mocking or playing with the idea of Allah, [19:16] which the president did during this war on Easter Sunday, or attacking the Pope, which doesn't fit [19:20] into any discernible strategy other than perhaps, as mentioned, a kind of erratic anger that the [19:26] president can't withhold. Here was Pope Leo's response. Blessed are the peace readers. I do not [19:34] look at my role as being a political politician. I don't want to get into a debate with him. I don't [19:41] think that the message of the gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. [19:47] And I will continue to speak out loud with this. I have no fear of neither the Trump administration [19:53] nor speaking out loudly about the message of the gospel. On the home front, Trump has also seen his [20:00] support from American Catholics fall. Remember, they voted for him by a 20-point margin as recently [20:08] as 2024, but there's slippage there. If you take white voters who didn't attend college, [20:14] which has been a MAGA voting block, well, Trump has fallen about 40 points since last year. [20:21] We're joined by Margaret Carlson, semaphore editor at large. Margaret, your view on the substance of this, [20:31] which pits Donald Trump against religions, more than one really, and the politics of it where it [20:38] doesn't seem to be helpful to him or the standing of the war. No decent politician would take on the [20:46] pope. It's like just asking for trouble. There's nothing in it for you. Let's put his ratings against [20:53] Trump's ratings. Let's look just at the Catholic vote that you were speaking of. [20:59] And the Jesus talk is just so out of hand these last couple of weeks. Pete Hegseth equating Trump's [21:11] getting the return of the airman as the resurrection of Jesus Christ, us wearing a cross around his neck, [21:19] asking the troops to fight for Jesus. I was at a funeral mass this week, Irish Catholic, Mary Ellen [21:26] Doyle, high mass, and I didn't hear the name Jesus that many times. And it seems to Catholics, [21:35] almost blasphemous to do that. Like when I was growing up, Ari, we would bow our heads when we said, [21:42] Jesus. That's what it was like. So Catholics hearing this, they don't like it. And what did you say? [21:48] He's lost a big part of the non-college educated Catholic voter. I think this today and the last week, [21:56] even just Hegseth invoking that name all the time, I think he's lost out. I'm not even that good at [22:05] conflict and I'm offended. Well, there you go. You know, your spirituality and religious [22:13] choices will never be evaluated on the beat. So I'm sure you're pretty good at anything, [22:18] but we don't even do that around here. So, you know, but Margaret, the other piece is obviously, [22:24] is the president in decline, increasingly unwell? People who watch this program know, [22:31] I really try to follow the evidence. So for folks who felt that that was kind of a thing to maybe muse [22:36] or ask about in years prior, we didn't leap towards that absent evidence. Now you're seeing a much [22:44] more what we might call evidence driven or mainstream discussion of it because, you know, [22:48] people say this term sane washing or trying to clean up for somebody. When I read the Praise Allah [22:54] post, there was no way to put it in a context. I've heard some defenses by the Trump allies. None of [23:02] them make any sense. If we're just, if we were in court and say, okay, is this admissible evidence? [23:06] Is this, it doesn't make sense. It felt much more like something was slipping. The Times has a story [23:11] new today. Trump's erratic behavior and extreme comments, including what we're discussing, [23:16] revived mental health debate, former allies questioning whether he's grown increasingly [23:20] unbalanced. Some say he's being like a lunatic or quote, clearly insane. Others say, and this might [23:27] be hard for people who've been longtime Trump critics to admit, but they say what was a little on the [23:33] edge, a little wacky, charming eight years ago, whatever, in their view, now looks like something [23:39] else. Where does that fit into these remarks and attacks, some of which he's had to delete? [23:43] I think that he's been doing this for a while, Ari. It's in the context of war that it looks [23:51] so much more erratic and so out of touch and so swinging from one extreme to another. He's going to [23:59] annihilate the Iranians in one minute, and then he's like shrugging his shoulders about what he's going [24:05] to do and what it means, and he could walk away from it. He cares about Hormuz, and then he's double [24:14] blocking it, and then, well, he'll figure it out some other way. And he's not used to losing. [24:22] In his own business, he could move and jockey, and the worst that could happen, he'd go bankrupt, [24:29] and then he'd get back up again. He doesn't see a way out of this. And I think it's making all of [24:35] the things that have been there for a while—this isn't new—all the more apparent. There was a Wall [24:42] Street Journal headline this Saturday, In Gut We Trust, and that's Peggy Noonan's assessment of [24:50] Donald Trump right now. And she's not a harsh Trump critic. It was going through just this back [24:59] and forth, where within one—as you're talking about that one truth social, in which he went back [25:06] and forth and ended with praise Allah—he also dropped an F-bomb. And I, just before I came on, [25:12] Ari, I went and looked up to see how many times a president has used that word. Some things seem to be [25:18] still out of bounds, not a lot, but actually no one—I could find no one except someone accidentally [25:27] caught on a hot mic and then apologizing for it. No one has ever—no president has ever done that. [25:35] How many times are we talking about that? It's because the bar is so low that, you know, if this, [25:43] what you might call it erratic to crazy behavior hadn't gotten us into something that nobody else would [25:51] have done, at least without analyzing an exit strategy or the consequences of, say, the strait being [25:58] closed, we wouldn't—you know, we're so just numb to it, it wouldn't matter. But when you look at these [26:05] truth socials, and then today, after insulting the post, the pope and all Catholics, then to picture [26:12] himself as God? You know, that reaction, even the reaction to something crazy is now so crazy. [26:22] And you wonder— [26:23] Well, I think you put it—and I think you put in a very important nexus, which is this [26:27] disinhibited erratic behavior is also being carried out as our foreign and war policy. And that's [26:32] chilling. It's not just, oh, wow, the F-word. I have a bunch of news, including Swalwell dropping [26:37] out. So I have to break here. Margaret Carlson, thank you. Always good to see you. We have a lot [26:43] coming up, including the loss of an authoritarian abroad, how that plays here at home, [26:47] and experts warning about these midterm games. Andrew Weissman is here. Stay with us. [26:52] Moving new scenes out of Hungary, where you could hear people singing, [27:23] we are the champions, the American queen classic. At times, they're in English, [27:29] because they were celebrating not only a win, but a very big, special, unusual one, [27:36] defeating the longtime autocratic leader of that country, Viktor Orban. And as we all know from [27:41] watching politics abroad and sometimes here in the United States, if you have a leader hell-bent [27:47] on defeating a peaceful transfer of power or a lawful election, then winning could be all the sweeter. [27:54] This was clearly a loss for Trump and Putin. There were efforts to endorse Orban's reelection [28:00] in different ways. Marco Rubio was in Hungary in a kind of a show of support. And J.D. Vance chose to [28:07] come in right before the election, which was a noticeable timeline. Diplomats know when foreign [28:12] country elections are. And in a kind of unusual step, to say the least, he dialed Trump up at an Orban rally. [28:20] I just want to tell you, I'm a big of them all the way. United States is with them all the way. [28:28] You don't have problems with all of the problems that so many other countries have [28:33] because they let their countries be invaded. Probably because of Viktor Orban. [28:39] We have got to get Viktor Orban reelected as prime minister of Hungary, don't we? [28:43] Yeah. That's what the Trump-Vance [28:50] campaign reboot looks like when they do it abroad. It didn't work. And to be clear, [28:55] Orban may have been headed for a loss regardless of what Trump and Vance wanted or tried to do. [29:02] Now Trump hitting a little bit of a different tone. That's going to be under very serious [29:09] examination. Thank you very much. If you follow this president, [29:20] as you know, the questions he doesn't take and when he walks away can be much more revealing than [29:24] the things he does want to chew on. And he is clearly watching an autocrat lose abroad after some very [29:31] serious tactics that overlap with his and perhaps thinking about the midterms and the next election, [29:37] where Vance, who you just saw, or other MAGA-style Republicans might want to use a Trump playbook. [29:43] That is to say, not have a free and fair election. The AP reports that there are striking parallels [29:48] between Trump and the Hungarian leader and the levers of government being used to, quote, [29:52] tilt media, judiciary, and electoral systems. That is, of course, putting it mildly. When you look at [29:58] January 6th, it wasn't just a tilt. It was violence, later convicted, of Trump allies and efforts to [30:04] still try to steal or override the delegate kind of electoral votes on the 6th inside Congress. Now, [30:15] Trump is going after the guardrails that worked more or less, at least slowly, in ejecting him from [30:22] office after his 2020 loss. Those efforts failed partly because there were consequences and partly, [30:29] as we charted on this sort of chart of arrows, things that started out legal and turned illegal, [30:35] and as they turned red and illegal, they were stopped. PubPublica, though, reports that some [30:40] of the guardrails and people that held the line last time are missing, and there are now two dozen [30:45] people picked by Trump who actively worked to overturn the 2020 vote. Some of those efforts went towards [30:54] illegal plans. Trump also trying to undercut the agencies that deal with nonpartisan election [31:00] security, reducing measures at DOJ and the Civil Rights Division. The Trump administration is not [31:10] being shy about threatening to undermine and steal this November elections. Authorizing federal forces [31:18] to roam our streets and saying that we now need to make federal forces guard ballot boxes to avoid fraud. [31:25] He's going to try to call out ICE and CBP and scare people away from the polls. [31:30] Their calculation is by making it harder for tens of millions of Americans [31:35] to exercise their right to vote, they'll have a chance of winning the midterms. [31:40] This is voter suppression. If you care about America and democracy, [31:47] you have to take this seriously because they've tried it before. You also have to keep a clear-eyed view [31:52] of what works. Because the last time they tried it in this country, it failed. And if you look at these [31:59] blueprints abroad, last night we saw how even more extreme efforts can also fail. Because when there [32:07] are facts and enough people who know the score, the autocratic playbook does fall apart. Andrew Weissman is [32:15] here on exactly that issue when we return.