‘These are not just words’: Trump’s latest comments spark fears of doing away with democracy

when I talk about the Bible it's very personal so I don't want to get into vers I don't want to get into there's no verse that means a lot to you that you think about or sight the Bible means a lot to me but I don't want to get into specifics even to cite a verse that like no I don't want to do that an Old Testament guy or a new testament guy uh probably equal hi again everyone it is 5:00 here in Washington DC I'm Alicia Menendez in for Nole Wallace When Donald Trump was first running for the pr

esidency that is what we saw in his appeal to the religious right now several years later after having won over evangelicals and nominated three justices to the Supreme Court who voted to overturn roie Wade Trump is showing Christians he is still their supposed Champion but his approach has taken a much darker turn last night Trump spoke at the National Religious broadcasters convention in Nashville where he characterized the upcoming election in the starkest of terms a battle between good and e

vil need for Christians to safeguard themselves against a wicked system and then he revived rhetoric that last year had the hair on the back of the necks of authoritarian experts stand up this time the greatest threat is not from the outside of our country I really believe this it's from within it's the people from within our country that are more dangerous than the people outside we can handle China we can handle Russia we can handle all of them if you have a smart leader but the inside people

are very dangerous they're very sick people in my opinion in many cases they're sick just to be clear he wasn't talking about himself now we don't like to further amplify Trump's fearmongering but it's important context to get the full picture of his authoritarian ways when Trump first made comments about the enemy from within Ruth benad a professor at NYU who studies Fascism and is often on this show said quote there are echoes of fascist rhetoric and they're very precise the overall strategy i

s an obvious one of dehumanizing people so the public will not have as much of the outcry at the things that you want to do what Trump wants to do is win back the presidency and Rule with absolute power he believes the president can do whatever he or she wants he has talked about weaponizing the justice department against his enemies he's currently attempting to fight his criminal indictments by saying a president is immune from prosecution it is an argument currently before The Supreme Court af

ter a District Court ruled against him in the federal election interference case as well as defense he used in filing just last night in the second of his Federal cases classified documents one saying that the decision to designate records as personal was an official act as president with the 2024 race fully underway we are seeing Trump's authoritarian bents become more and more overt and Brazen and that is where we start this hour with former deputy Assistant Attorney General for National Secur

ity MSNBC legal analyst Mary McCord also with me professor of politics and journalism at Morgan State University and an MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson and the founder of democracy docket and partner at the Elias Law Group Mark Elias a lot of friends with us at the table on Friday when you hear all of that Mary which alarm Bells go off for you well I mean this is classic him going out him trying to Pander to a particular crowd and and it's really I think offensive to people who actually are Chri

stians um to hear some of what he says uh you know Christians against Christian nationalism is one organiz organization out there saying look you know Christianity is about accepting all religions not this is the only religion so he's he's not being true to the to the you know religious people who actually believe in what Christianity stands for and again it is that type of fear-mongering it is that type of um uh just simply pandering to those we think he wants to hear that to hop ahead though t

o um his you know his motion last night on uh filed a similar motion to dismiss the mara Lago case the classified documents case very similar motion to the one that he filed in DC where he lost where he said I should be immune from Criminal prosecution from everything that I did within my the scope of my official acts of president in DC he said everything he did that had to do with undermining the election was within His official acts talking to his Department of Justice talking to state legisla

tors talking to Mike Pence now he's saying everything I did with respect to the classified documents was within my official acts because I made the decision back when I was in the the White House to at some of these as presidental presidential records but notably that would only help him for the classified documents offenses right not the um obstruction offenses which there's no way he can say he committed those when he was back in office but I think what he's trying to do here is get a differen

t decision out of Judge Cannon than what he got out of Judge chuckin maybe hoping he'll get a different decision out of the 11th circuit maybe trying to convince the Supreme Court keep waiting a while to decide uh give me more time time before you make any decisions about the pending C the pending Motion in the Supreme Court to take this case because look we need to let this percolate down here in the 11th circuit he's really trying to create create his own circuit split I don't think he's going

to get it even if he gets a win from Judge Canon but I think he's trying to make this all look more uh attractive to the Supreme Court so let's tally it up Mark you have a perversion of religion you have a perversion of Justice you have a perversion of democracy and it's not just him you had a right-wing conspiracy theorist at CPAC yesterday saying I just want to say welcome to the end of democracy we are here to overthrow it completely we didn't get all the way there on January 6th but we will

endeavor to get rid of it it's not even saying the quiet part out loud it's saying the quiet part with a bullhorn absolutely and this is not just some conspiracy theorist I mean CPAC is the Trump convention right this is like you know the RNC and the Republican National Convention is all well and good but if you want to know what Donald Trump and his supporters believe CPAC is the Blessed it is the authorized vehicle for that and so it is time for us to recognize that these are not just words y

ou know when Donald Trump uh uh Records a rooc call or records a video for RONA MC the RNC he doesn't mean any of that when he says these things to out of his own mouth to uh the Christian organization or talk or at CPAC his supporters talk about do away with democracy that's what they mean when they say that they that this is following up on January 6 that is what they mean and so when you when you see them try to make it harder to vote and easier to cheat in elections that is what they mean an

d they mean it because they are trying to uh to steal the outcome of the elections they are trying to set up an excuse and a permission structure to engage not just in frivolous election litigation like I was involved in fighting against for President Biden but setting up the next January 6th here's the thing which is I think often we focus on Donald Trump for for good reason because he is power he is persuasive there are people who listen to him at the same time the threat has grown Beyond Dona

ld Trump it is not as though if he doesn't win the nomination and doesn't win a second term that the threat goes away because there is now a legion of followers who are not pro- democracy who are actively talking about overthrowing democracy so in that way that is what actually needs Reckoning with Elicia the whole part about the sort of trump rise that's always been problematic to me is that we don't spend as as you're pointing out enough time talking about there's like 37% of the American popu

lation that's perfectly cool with white nationalism and fascism like like he can't do what he's doing if there weren't groups of people who wanted to sit and listen to this nonsense at CPAC I can tell you right now that I want to create the dictatorship of J sistan okay and I can announce that right now I promise you no one is going to come to a conference to join J San because no one believes me but there you get like half a dozen I think I get some of my students I think you know maybe my mom

maybe my a half dozen of your half doz only half so so that's the problem the danger is that we have a cpad conference full of people who worship this man he's at a Christian Conference and I want to be clear a Christian nationalist conference I know a lot of Christians there's probably Christians on this set those people aren't there right these people aren't talking about the Bible that I have any understanding of and so that is what's dangerous that we have an increasing number of people who

are perfectly okay including a crazy guy who got a canceled television show who was hanging out in another country who's basically saying if we have good grocery stores it's okay to have a dictatorship we have too many people who are saying that fascism is okay as long as the trains run on time and that's the danger that trumpism has created in our public discourse the fact that he is pushing this immunity argument to me is all part and partial right because there's this idea of I am greater I a

m omnipotent I can do whatever I want and yes it is about authoritarianism it is also about sort of this idea of having a person who is called upon to be of service yeah I think that's right and I think that that a lot of the commentary on on on on this network and more generally in the in the uh thoughtful media is about the impact that the immunity rulings will have on the trial date and that is not to be ignored but there's another reason why he is pushing so publicly this immunity argument u

m you know sometimes and I do a lot of work for candidates and I know all of you have been involved in campaigns to one extent or another you know sometimes you want the candidate to run on a platform so that when they win they can govern on it and I think Donald Trump is also setting up a reality that he can say if he were to win an election look I told you I was running on an immunity platform I told you from the day I announced I could shoot people on Fifth Avenue and and still get elected an

d I ran on a platform of defying court orders I ran on a platform of not returning documents that I'm not entitled to I ran on a platform of having January Sixers uh uh you know acquire that I called hostages and I ran on a platform of being able to be immune and do whatever I want when I invoke invoke the Insurrection act and so I think it's very dangerous not just because he's trying to delay his trial and all of that but because he wants this to be a legitimized you if God forbid he were to b

e reelected