Summary
A Trump-appointed judge is going to rule on his special master request "in due course". Interview with Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. In his speech on preserving democracy, president Joe Biden once again attacked Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who this week said Trump voters will be rioting in the streets if Donald Trump is charged with a crime. On August 4th, President Biden privately met with a group of historians and scholars.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Alex.
And we have Stacey Abrams, Congressman James Clyburn, Michael Beschloss, to talk about President Biden`s speech tonight.
But we`re going to begin with what happened in that courtroom in Florida today on the question of can a special master get in there and take a look at those documents? We`re going to have our legal team go straight at that.
ALEX WAGNER, MSNBC HOST, "ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT": I love it and I can`t wait to see it. Have a great show, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thanks, Alex. Thank you, Alex. Thank you.
Well, a federal judge who in law school joined the Federalist Society, an organization created to deliver right-wing judges to the federal judiciary and who was appointed as a federal judge in the final months of Donald Trump`s presidency today heard arguments in the case of Donald J. Trump versus the United States of America. Yes, that is the name of the case, Donald J. Trump versus the United States of America. And that is the truth of the case.
The Federalist Society, Trump-appointed judge in a two-hour hearing repeatedly asked Justice Department prosecutors what harm could there be in agreeing with Donald Trump`s lawyer`s request to appoint a so-called special master in the case to examine some or all of the documents and records seized by the FBI with a search warrant of Donald Trump`s home on August 8.
Last week, before the judge had heard a word of opposition from the Justice Department lawyers she publicly said that she was inclined, inclined to go along with what Donald Trump wants in this case. This is a judge who then knew absolutely nothing about the law governing presidential records, a judge who knew absolutely nothing about the law governing government records generally, the legal handling of classified documents and that judge from her position of full ignorance of these matters in this case immediately said immediately she was inclined to do what Donald Trump wanted her to do. Today, finally hearing directly from Jay Bratt, chief of the counterintelligence and export control section of the Justice Department`s national security division, Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon was more restrained in her statements and reserved judgment on the question of a special master saying that she would issue a written opinion and order, quote, in due course, which could theoretically mean in the next minute or two or next week or anything in between.
Special masters have been used in criminal investigations involving the seizure of evidence that could include evidence protected by the attorney- client privilege federal prosecutors have said that they have already sorted out those documents which they say is a very, very small part of what they seized in Donald Trump`s home. Donald Trump is asking the judge who he appointed to do something that has never been done before, ever.
Donald Trump is asking for a special master to examine classified documents that belong to the government, to decide whether Donald Trump can retain some kind of control of those documents because of his claim while no longer president of the privilege of the presidency called executive privilege.
The Justice Department`s position is very simple. The government owns the documents, not Donald Trump, and Donald Trump can exercise no control over documents owned by the government. Jay Bratt told the judge he is no longer the president and because he`s no longer the president, he had no right to those documents. That ends the analysis.
One of Donald Trump`s demonstrably incompetent lawyers, James Trusty, lied to the court, provoking absolutely no objection from the judge when he said: We`ve characterized it at times as an overdue library book scenario where there`s a dispute -- not even a dispute but ongoing negotiations with the National Archives that has suddenly been transformed into a criminal investigation.
[22:05:25]
Every word of that is a lie, something lawyers don`t like to do in court. Donald Trump`s newest lawyer made an appearance in court for the first time today. His name has not appeared in the case until today. Christopher Kise is a respected Republican Florida lawyer who served as the state`s solicitor general. He reportedly has obtained a multi-million dollar deal from Donald Trump to represent him as the lead counsel in the case from now on, if he is as good a lawyer as he appears to be on his resume, he no doubt obtained significant portions or all of his multi-million dollar fee before entering the courthouse today since Donald Trump is publicly known to have never been a big believer in fully paying lawyers.
Attorney Kise reportedly said nothing particularly controversial in the hearing today, telling the judge, quote, we need to take a deep breath -- which in this case means it`s time to slow down the criminal investigation of Donald Trump and a special master might help us do that.
The Trump lawyer who signed a false affidavit to the FBI on June 3rd saying that they were turning over at that time all of the government documents, including classified documents in Donald Trump`s possession at his home in Florida was not in the courtroom today. Attorney Christina Bobb is now obviously, according to the government`s filing in the case, according to the evidence presented in the government`s filing in the case this week, clearly, a leading suspect in their obstruction of justice investigation as is Trump attorney Evan Corcoran who wrote the false affidavit that was handed to the FBI in Donald Trump`s home.
Donald Trump`s new high-priced lawyer Christopher Kise allowed obstruction of justice suspect Evan Corcoran to sit at the council table today but did not allow him to speak. No word on how long that condition is going to exist.
Judge Cannon knows that there future as a federal judge will be decided by this case because the Republican appointment process of federal judges has been completely corrupted by the Federalist Society and the Republican Senate and Republican presidents. Every Republican judge knows that a promotion to an appeals court or to the Supreme Court depends not on independent and wise judicial scholarship but on performance in the courtroom, delivering the opinions that extremist Republicans want.
There have been some Trump appointed judges who have defied that Republican expectation and ruled independently and wisely in some cases. Judge Cannon now has to ask herself whether allowing a special master may be just to look at the attorney-client privilege documents would be enough to advance her career as a Republican judge, or would she have to give Donald Trump everything he wants in order to have any hope of ever moving up to the appeals court or beyond.
Or is she content with her lifetime appointment to the federal district court and is her honor and integrity as a jurist more important to her than trying to work her way onto the short list of Republican Supreme Court nominees at some future point in her career. We will know Judge Cannon`s answer to those questions about her future when she issues her opinion in due course.
Leading off our discussion tonight, Andrew Weissmann, former FBI general counsel and former chief of the criminal division in the eastern district of New York. He`s a professor of practice at NYU law school now. Neal Katyal, former acting U.S. solicitor general. They`re both MSNBC legal analysts.
Also with us is Bradley Moss, a national security attorney.
And, Andrew Weissmann, what was your reading of what we know transpired in the courtroom today.
ANDREW WEISSMANN, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: I start with having listened to the president`s speech tonight where he talked about democracy and the constitution and the right to vote. And I think for me and Neil and Brad as lawyers, that comes down very much to upholding the rule of law, which means that everyone is supposed to be treated equally. And Donald Trump is not supposed to be treated worse or better.
The lower courts have done by and large a remarkable job in not falling for the big lie and political spin if you think about all of the cases that Donald Trump and his minions brought to challenge the election. He lost substantively, all of them, because the courts whether they -- people were appointed by a Republican or a Democrat, followed the rule of law and the Constitution.
And if you look at this judge, it`s really useful for her to take a page from another Trump appointed judge who ruled today that`s Dabney Friedrich, who is a district judge in D.C., appointed by Donald Trump, who dismissed a case that was brought by Carter Page against the FBI and James Comey, and many other people because it did not meet the legal standards because she had the courage and the commitment to the rule of law.
What is going on now is for the district judge in Florida to actually when she is alone in her chambers to not be thinking about her future not be thinking about anything else than that Donald Trump is not entitled to relief that no other defendant would get and that really is what is what`s at stake here. It`s not a question of her saying, what`s the harm?
No other defendant would ever be able to make this motion and have it granted.
O`DONNELL: Neal Katyal, Donald Trump shopped for this judge or hoping to get this judge by filing this not in the court where the search warrant originated, but in this branch court of the southern district where there was a chance of getting this Trump-appointed judge in the lottery system that they use, the random system they use for selecting judges. And Donald Trump got lucky, he got one of his judges in this.
You would think that an honorable judge in that situation having been appointed in the last months of the Trump presidency might, first of all, consider recusal. Even if she firmly believes she`s not compromised in any way, she might want to consider the unique circ*mstances of this case and the way it appears to all states and all voters in all states. She ruled that out right away.
And instead, instead, right off the bat, right off the bat said, I`m inclined to do what Donald Trump wants to do.
NEAL KATYAL, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, Lawrence, that certainly concerns me. I`m not sure that she should have thought about recusal because people do shop for judges all the time and it might be a nice short-term gratification that might get some relief. But most important cases go to the court of appeals and indeed possibly to the United States Supreme Court where this forum shopping will be, you know, something in the judge`s mind. So I don`t think this is going to go anywhere long term.
But I am concerned, Lawrence, just off the bat. We knew this judge wasn`t going to have a televised hearing, unlike you know many other federal court cases. I`ve argued like the Muslim ban case televised on live TV and federal court and the like. We knew she wasn`t going to do that, but she did something really striking right before the hearing which is ban all Wi- Fi so we couldn`t actually hear in real time what was happening and indeed we don`t have right now all you know everything that was said in that hearing.
And some of the stuff that was said was, you know, it`s not just what she says, it`s also what the Trump lawyers said. You know, some of it you`ve got like the library book thing, which is just outrageous. The idea that bringing home all these highly classified human source information electronic intercept information is like an overdue library book, that`s ridiculous.
But also, Trump`s lawyer evidently in court insisted that there were no criminal statutes in the Presidential Records Act, so he had done nothing wrong which is as bogus as it gets because Trump is not being investigated for violating the Presidential Records Act. He`s being investigated violating five other statutes just not that one and a federal magistrate judge has already said it`s more likely than not that he`s criminally violated three of them.
[21:15:01]
So I think that`s a real problem just kind of substantively because we don`t know everything that was said in real time.
The second problem is, you know, what we do know she said, this idea that she`s entertaining a special master. Andrew said it better than I ever could -- if it were you or me or any one of the other 300 million Americans, there`s no chance in the world you`re going to get a special master.
And I guess her response is to say well but this is about executive privilege that makes it different, but no president has ever exerted executive privilege against the executive branch, which is the one investigating here. It doesn`t make any sense, particularly for conservatives who believe in the so-called unitary executive theory and it certainly doesn`t make any sense when the government`s already gone through all the documents.
So, bottom line, Donald Trump lost a lot, Lawrence, in the 2020 election. He lost a security clearance. He lost his last shred of dignity, but he also lost his claim to executive privilege. And so, this is a delay tactic. It won`t stop the government. It might even frankly aggravate the government and make them move faster, but I don`t think it`s going anywhere.
O`DONNELL: Bradley Moss, you specialized in national security matters as an attorney and any attorney who has a specialty has the experience of seeing a case come before a judge who`s never really had to deal with that specialty before. This may be one of those.
Given what we know and who knows what we don`t know about exactly what was said in that courtroom today, where do you -- what stands out for you at this point?
BRADLEY MOSS, NATIONAL SECURITY ATTORNEY: Yeah, what stands out for me is the idea that the judge at the moment believes there is a role for the special master to truly play with anything with respect to anything other than attorney-client privileged information. Put aside the potential issues of whether or not you should have recused. Put aside the procedural and the substantive deficiencies in the Trump team`s arguments.
There`s never been a special master for executive privilege issues. There`s never been one for classified information. I litigate on matters implicating classified information all the time. I was in court a couple weeks ago on a preliminary injunction hearing for stuff along the lines of classified information, trying to get a secure computer for a client. The government eviscerated us before the judge saying you can`t get that kind of stuff. We make that decision, no one else. And, of course, the judge went along with it.
So what I think we have here is at least for the moment, a judge who is considering contemplating the idea of providing this relief. She`s going to have to write this stuff down particularly if she`s going to provide injunctive relief here. If she`s going to impose an injunction against the government, she`s going to have to outline that in the various analysis the four prongs that she`s going to have to outline, which will be a great basis for appeal, if it`s not based in proper factual analysis.
That`s going to be the reason why I think in the end, she won`t actually give Donald Trump what he thinks he`s getting here. She might try to broker some compromise in terms of a limited role for a special master. It`s not going to be on executive privilege and I`ll eat crow if I`m wrong.
O`DONNELL: Bradley Moss, Neal Katyal, Andrew Weissmann, thank you all very much for starting us off tonight. Really appreciate it.
MOSS: Have a good night.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, Stacey Abrams will join us with her reaction to President Biden`s speech tonight, including his criticism of Lindsey Graham for threatening rioting in the streets if Donald Trump is charged with a crime. Stacey Abrams joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:23:16]
O`DONNELL: Tonight in his speech on preserving democracy delivered where the American version of democracy was created in Philadelphia outside of Independence Hall, President Joe Biden once again attacked Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who this week said Trump voters will be rioting in the streets if Donald Trump is charged with a crime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLI)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are public figures today, yesterday and the day before predicting and all but calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets. This is inflammatory. It`s dangerous. It`s against the rule of law, and we the people must say this is not who we are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining our discussion now, Stacey Abrams, Democratic nominee for governor of the state of Georgia.
Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
And Lindsey Graham is not getting the rioting in the streets that he wants but he does seem to have intensified Joe Biden`s sense of urgency of what is at stake here.
STACEY ABRAMS (D), GEORGIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I think that President Biden clearly articulated what is at stake, but I want to urge caution that we not be distracted by the carnival barkers that we see in a Donald Trump or Lindsey Graham and we ignore those who are just as dangerous to democracy like Ron DeSantis or Brian Kemp or Brad Raffensperger.
It is not simply those who yell and scream that we need to be afraid of. It`s those who are architecting the very overthrow of democracy that we are seeing play out across this country.
[22:25:00]
And we know that in the state of Georgia, Brian Kemp has architected a bill that was promulgated across this country that is undermining elections as we speak because it is making diff -- making it difficult for voters to be able to cast their ballots and have those ballots counted.
We know that right now, thousands of Georgia voters have been challenged because of an unlimited elector challenge process that was put in place by Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger. We know that black county election officials were removed from their offices because of SB-202.
And we need to make certain that we understand that the slow motion erosion of our democracy does not require the loud and raucous behavior that Lindsey Graham threatened. It also happens when the sitting governor refuses to testify in a trial and instead seeks to cross the subpoena that is summoning his voice until after an election because he doesn`t want the electorate to hear what he has to say.
O`DONNELL: And the president did speak about this situation you`re talking about in Georgia and elsewhere without specifying names of the Republicans around the country.
But let`s listen to what he said about what he`s has he described what mega Republicans who do not represent the Constitution, what they`re doing around the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election, and they`re working right now as I speak in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: That -- that is a national echo of your specific message about what`s happening in Georgia.
ABRAMS: Yes. Brian Kemp`s running mate, Burt Jones, was a fake elector. He signed a fake electorate slip. We know that Brian Kemp has also reappointed yet another fake elector and he`s accepted more than $250,000 from fake electors.
He has intentionally said he has never had a bad word to say about Donald Trump and while he tries to hide behind the guise of a moderate, he has proven time and again that he is not only a supporter of MAGA, he is in the embodiment of what MAGA looks like. He has stripped women of their bodily autonomy. He has weakened gun laws. He has made it almost impossible for hospitals to stay open if they are facing economic challenges. We`ve just watched yet another hospital in the heart of Atlanta declared that it has to shut down the sixth hospital to shut down under Brian Kemp`s watch because he refuses to expand Medicaid.
We have seen him demonize immigrants in the attempt to win an election and we`ve seen him refuse to say that he will protect marriage equality in the state of Georgia.
Those are examples of why democracy is so important because democracy is how we guarantee our rights the reason we need people who support democracy is so that the people of our nation the people of our states have the ability to control the future and control their lives.
Brian Kemp is not a champion of democracy and we cannot be distracted by the silence of their behavior into believing they are on the right side of the future.
O`DONNELL: We saw a federal judge today order Senator Lindsey Graham to testify to the Fani Willis` grand jury in Atlanta about his attempts to interfere with the election there and this Georgia judge has ordered the governor to testify but given him the option of testifying after the election. What I don`t quite get about that is it`s a grand jury proceeding, it is secret, nothing about the governor`s testimony if he gave it this week if he gave it tomorrow or if he gave it Monday, we would know nothing about it.
And so the idea that there`s something -- there`s something -- there`s some political implication to having the governor go over to the courthouse for a few hours in September, long before the election is something -- it`s not clear to me exactly what that issue is, that has to wait until the second week of November.
ABRAMS: I believe the appropriate aphorism is he gets to have his cake and eat it too. He does not want to be held accountable for his posture. He wants those who believe he is on the side of the anti-Trumpers to be able to continue to believe it until he`s given that testimony, but he doesn`t want anyone on the side of MAGA to believe that he might possibly not be on their side. He wants everyone to see him as a Rorschach test and I see him clearly and I need Georgians and Americans to see him clearly.
This man who is the architect of voter suppression heading into the 2018 election, the person who despised the outcomes of 2021. In 2020, he said he was frustrated by those outcomes, which is why he changed the laws of Georgia.
[22:29:47]
Someone who has taken great pains to ally himself with those who are election deniers, to take their money, to take their support, and to have them as running mates.
It`s not a friend of democracy. And he is not an anti Trumper. He is a hard right extremist who is living the values of Donald Trump and living the values of undermining democracy every day.
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Stacey Abrams, Georgia candidate for governor, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.
ABRAMS: Thank you for having me.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, the man who engineer Joe Biden`s come back in the presidential campaign, Congressman James Clyburn will join us with his reaction to Joe Biden now campaigning for democracy`s survival in America. Congressman James Clyburn joins us next.
[22:30:47]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: While the threat to American democracy is real, I want to say it as clearly as we can, we are not powerless in the face of these threats. We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy.
There are far more Americans, far more Americans from every background and belief, who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that except it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: That`s more of what President Biden said tonight in Philadelphia`s Independence Hall. A new "Wall Street Journal" poll asked registered voters who they would vote for if the 2024 presidential election is President Biden versus Donald Trump. The poll shows president Biden leading Donald Trump 50 to 44. That is a wider margin than President Biden beat Donald Trump by in 2020 after winning the Democratic nomination in large part if not entirely due to the endorsem*nt of our next guest, Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina. He endorsed Joe Biden in the South Carolina primary.
Joining us now is Democratic Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina. He is the House majority whip.
Congressman Clyburn, thank you very much for joining us tonight. And you have heard speeches about American democracy all your life. And in the 60s, we started to hear speeches at the presidential level about expanding American democracy to include all black voters.
But this is the first time I think we have heard a president going out there to give a speech to defend the continuation, the very continuation of American democracy.
REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Well thank you very much for having me. You know, I think you are right about that. But you know, we`ve always had, without call, fair weather, small d democrats, I think back in the 1770s, when the country was trying to give birth to itself, some are (INAUDIBLE), some more soldiers and sunshine patriots.
We, back in the 1960s, saw people who really disagreed on how the country should move forward. But they maintain their pursuit of perfection. They may have disagreed on our best to do it but they remained loyal to the country.
Today, we seem to call these fair weather small d democrats, MAGA Republicans. People who feel that`s only their way can be considered. And it`s Joe Biden has said, if they are not the winners, then somebody cheated them out of something.
I don`t understand that kind of concept. We have contest in this country all the time. We have school board elections, legislative elections at the state level. And you cannot have two people holding the same office.
So when these elections are over, we tend to come together as Americans and find out how we can work together. How to find common ground in order to keep moving this country forward. And that`s what the president was talking about tonight. He does work well with Republicans. We have passed legislation, with the rescue act, we got no Republicans. When we came back with the infrastructure bill. We got Republicans for that.
The chip and science bill, Republicans for that. Not the MAGA Republicans, but Republicans who see the country as a whole that all of us should be working together to find common ground.
So the president was right to sound out the notion that this country, this democracy, it`s worth fighting for, and that those of us who are joining him in this fight look to do so in a bipartisan matter, and we will always be reaching out to people across the aisle. Trying to find common ground so that we can leave our children and our grandchildren a country worth having.
[22:40:01]
O`DONNELL: Yes. President Biden made it very clear at the beginning of his speech that he is not talking about all Republicans. He is making a distinction about what he calls the MAGA Republicans who simply do not want to count all the votes that are cast in our democracy.
Let`s listen to more of what the president said tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I will not stand by and watch elections in this country stolen by people who simply refused to accept that they lost.
I will not stand by and watch the most fundamental freedom in this country, the freedom to vote, and have your vote counted, and be taken from you and the American people.
Look, as your president, I will defend our democracy with every fiber of my being and I`m asking every American to join me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Congressman Clyburn, that sounds like the kind of speech you would have encouraged Joe Biden to be giving tonight.
CLYBURN: Oh yes, no question about that. This is a great country. I have been saying this for a long time. It doesn`t need to be made great again. Our challenge in this country is making that`s greatness accessible and affordable for all of our people. If it`s going to be housing, health care, education, whatever it is. We need to make sure that it is accessible and affordable for and by all of the American people.
And that is what Joe Biden has been all about. And that`s why you see him moving up in the polls, because people have now gotten a good understanding of what his program is all about.
You can go it right down through the six -- five or six major pieces of legislation: reducing the inflation, creating jobs, bringing good paying jobs back to America, ensuring safe neighborhoods, and good schools for our children.
You look at all of this legislation that is being passed, and it all adds up to that. And that`s what the president wants us to do. Keep working. Yes, have debate, have disagreements. But keep working together to find that common ground.
If we always agreed on everything, there would be no room to grow. We have to have exchange of ideas, and all good ideas are not found in the Democratic Party. All r bad ideas are not found in the Republican Party. We all come together and seek out the best within all of us and see what we can do about making this country a better place to leave our children and our grandchildren.
As they said, President Biden did make the distinction early in the speech that he`s not talking about all Republicans, he`s talking about MAGA Republicans.
You live in South Carolina. You know an awful lot of Republicans. Do you think Republicans hear that distinction clearly the way the president puts it when he is trying to make -- identify a difference between what he calls MAGA Republicans and the rest of Republicans?
CLYBURN: Yes I do. In fact, on January 6, 2021, the first phone call I got when we were in our so-called undisclosed location, was from the governor of South Carolina. The governor called me to check on my well-being. And he said to me at that time that he was going to do what he could at the state level. To make sure that we put in place for South Carolina the mechanism that will allow us to build (ph) our state with the kind of broadband that we have been talking about.
And today, I work with him and very closely. We`re going to build our broadband 100 percent -- in South Carolina within 3 to 5 years.
How are we doing that? We are taking the state money. We`re taking the rescue money, we are taking the infrastructure money, to put together the $650 million that are going to allow us to have broadband in the entire state.
The Republican governor of South Carolina who was the first to endorse Donald Trump for president, McMaster and I work very closely together. I worked very close with other members of Republican members of the legislation on behalf of the state.
[22:44:50]
CLYBURN: So no, we are not calling out all Republicans. But the MAGA Republicans, they should not be allowed to serve in public office. They should not be allowed appointments to boards and commissions. We should relegate them to a solo place in our society that we do for people who are summer sources and sunshine patriots.
O`DONNELL: And just to clarify so that Fox doesn`t try to grab that and use that, you mean the Republicans who are election deniers, the Republicans who do not want to count all of the votes in our elections. You`re not talking about all Republicans when you say that.
CLYBURN: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. As I said, I work very closely with Republicans. My father was a Republican. So I don`t have anything against Republicans. But if you do not admit that there is a place in our electoral system for someone to win and then the other person loses, if you feel that the only way for you to win an election is to deny me the votes? No. There should be no place for you in government.
If you consider for community of people that can dilute the results of an election, they should not be allowed to serve in government.
O`DONNELL: Congressman James Clyburn, thank you very much for joining us once again tonight. We always appreciate it.
CLYBURN: Thank you very much for having me.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, presidential historian Michael Beschloss will join us on "This Week In Presidential History", including the very first time a federal prosecutor had to tell a former president in court that he is no longer president. And what inspired the campaign to save democracy that Joe Biden launched in Philadelphia tonight.
[22:46:54]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: For a long time, we`ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it`s not. We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: On August 4th, President Biden privately met with a group of historians and scholars. The "Washington Post" reports the conversation during a ferocious a lightning storm on August 4th unfolded as a sort of Socratic dialogue between the commander and chief and a select group of scholars, who painted the current moment as among the most perilous in modern history for democratic governance.
Comparisons were made to the years before the 1860 election when Abraham Lincoln warns that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and the lead up to the 1940 election when FDR Franklin Roosevelt battled rising domestic sympathy for European fascism and resistance to the United States joining World War II.
Joining us now is one of the people who was in the room with the president that day, NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss. His latest book is "Presidents of War". Michael, this has been a week in a Florida courtroom, we had to have a former president told through federal prosecutors that he is no longer president. And we just saw the president of the United States go to Philadelphia, where this democracy was born, to fight for the continuing life of the democracy.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Right. Right. Wonderful to see you sir on such a historic night. You are absolutely right, Lawrence. And you know, it`s almost impossible to think of those two scenes in the same week.
Let`s start with Donald Trump and the FBI search. Here is an example of someone who took all of these documents to Florida, as far as we know the information in them may have been given to foreign governments, to terrorists, God knows who. There are laws against that.
He told the government that he had sent everything back. There is a serious chance tonight that he is going to be liable to being charged with obstruction of justice and things that are worse.
And then on the other side, Joe Biden is saying, here we are, I am president, but the democracy is in peril, like 1860, like 1940. We are in a situation where few things go the wrong way, we could lose our system, our rule of law, our free and fair elections.
And I think one thing that makes presidents look very good in history is when they stand up to that moment and say, you know, this is what it is. Fish or cut bait, maybe all lose as a result.
1860 Lincoln was running through election, said country can`t last half slave and half free. Roosevelt in 1940 was saying, I know a lot of people are terrified of losing their sons, but we may have to stand up against Hitler. I`m saying this even though I might lose.
O`DONNELL: Yes. In 1940 -- I was struck by in your conversation with the president, is that Franklin Roosevelt was deeply concerned about the strength of and the rise of fascism in America.
[22:54:57]
BESCHLOSS: He was.
O`DONNELL: But we know that that concern basically ended on December 7th, 1941, a year later, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. And the country just had this unanimously, virtually unanimously unifying event which was joining together for World War II. But that is not the way it was just a few years before that.
BESCHLOSS: No, that`s exactly right, even one year before that as you know from studying history just as well as I do, 1940, Roosevelt was saying I hope to stay out of war against Hitler and the Japanese, but I`m not sure. Let`s make sure we have enough defense.
His opponent Wendell Willkie was at least pretending to be very anti war and saying you vote for Roosevelt, your children are going to be underground. He actually said things like that. And Willkie was making a lot of headway in October if that election had been held a month earlier, Willkie could have gotten elected.
O`DONNELL: And as we go forward in this, what are the lessons that Joe Biden has to keep in mind?
BESCHLOSS: That when there is an issue like whether democracy is going to survive or not, you can`t say, although these are important issues but the most important issue is minimum wage, very important issue. But if there is no democracy, we can`t get any satisfaction on minimum wage or on abortion, or health care, or some of these other issues.
And a president who does not recognize that is a small president. Lincoln and Roosevelt did in their time, no one is arguing that Joe Biden is the equal of Lincoln or Roosevelt, but it`s a very good historical lesson for every president to know.
O`DONNELL: Michael Beschloss, the cruelty of the clock is upon us and we must stop.
Michael Beschloss, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
BESCHLOSS: Thank you so much, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Really appreciate it.
Thank You.
BESCHLOSS: Always.
O`DONNELL: Thank you. We will be right back.
[22:56:55]
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O`DONNELL: "THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE" starts now.
