US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday selected federal senior Judge Raymond Dearie to serve as special master to review the materials seized in the FBI`s search of former President Donald Trump`s Florida residence and resort. Cannon also rejected the Justice Department`s request to revive its criminal investigation into classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is complying with a Justice Department subpoena. The Justice Department issued 40 subpoenas in connection with investigations into former President Trump and his associates surrounding the January 6 riots and the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC ANCHOR: The war crimes committed in that country by the Russian military. On Assignment Ukraine, "The Search For Justice" airs tomorrow night at 10:00 p.m. Eastern only on MSNBC. THE 11TH HOUR with Stephanie Ruhle starts now.
STEPHANIE RUHLE, MSNBC ANCHOR: Tonight, the federal judge in Florida denies the Department of Justice full access to the classified documents found at the former president`s beach club. The Trump appointed judge again sides with the president who appointed her.
Then, President Biden gets trained workers to cut a deal averting a strike that would have disrupted the entire country`s supply chain. The rail workers big request more sick days. Plus, governors DeSantis and Abbott staged a cruel political stunt shipping more desperate migrants up north. If cruelty is the point, what`s the cost? As the 11th hour gets underway this Thursday night.
Good evening. Once again, I`m Stephanie Ruhle. And we`ve got breaking news tonight in the case of Donald Trump versus the USA, also known as the Justice Department`s investigation of classified documents seized from the former guys Florida club.
Tonight, Judge Aileen Cannon met the DOJ deadline and appointed a special master to go through the material the FBI found during the search. Judge Raymond Dearie, submitted by Trump`s legal team and agreed to by DOJ lawyers will be getting the job. He now has until November 30 to complete his review.
But Judge Canon denied a key DOJ request to continue reviewing classified material as part of its criminal investigation. DOJ has said it would appeal the judge`s ruling to the 11th Circuit. So stay tuned.
Meanwhile, NBC News has confirmed Trump`s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, on your screen right there, has complied with a subpoena from the Justice Department`s investigation into the 6, that now makes him the highest ranking ex-Trump official to do so.
Tonight, the Washington Post has new reporting on the dozens of other January 6 subpoenas that were issued over the last week, The Post says it reviewed three of the subpoenas, which covered quote 18 separate categories of information, including any communications the recipients had with scores of people in six different states were supporters of then-President Trump sought to promote what are known as alternate electors.
Today, Trump in an interview was asked about the possibility he could get charged. And here`s some of what he had to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel like the Department of Justice is trying to indict you, Mr. President?
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, there is no reason that they can. I did absolutely. You`ve seen the legal papers? Absolutely nothing wrong. I think if it happened, I think you`d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we`ve never seen before. I don`t think the people of the United States would stand for it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What kind of problems, Mr. President?
TRUMP: I think you`d have big problems, big problems.
RUHLE: Also, the January 6 congressional committee now saying justice officials will have to wait to get a look at their findings. The panel`s chairman says it will not hand over any information until after the final report is complete.
We`ve got a lot to cover. I told you so. So let`s get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel tonight. John Allen, senior national politics reporter for NBC News, Professor Melissa Murray of NYU Law School. She was a law clerk for Sonia Sotomayor on the federal bench before her nomination to the Supreme Court. And Barb McQuade is here, a veteran federal prosecutor and former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She worked with the DOJ during the Biden transition, and is a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law.
Barbara, what is your takeaway from the judge`s ruling?
BARBARA MCQAUDE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Well, I suppose it`s not a surprise that she didn`t reverse herself. But DOJ had really offered her a kind of a like a lifeline that could be faced saving and carving out these 100 or so classified documents. Instead, she completely rejected that argument, and even said, something that I found really disturbing, which was the mere fact that these documents have classified markings does not mean they are classified.
She also rejected an unrefuted affidavit that was submitted by the FBI`s director of Counterintelligence. There`s no contrary evidence to suggest that what he is saying is false when he says that the criminal investigation is inextricably intertwined with the national security assessment.
And so she demonstrates, I think, great skepticism toward the government, if not downright hostility. Nonetheless, I think there`s a little bit of a silver lining here. One is she wrote this order within DOJ`s deadline to keep the urgency moving along. And she also clarified that to the extent the FBI is necessary and that damage assessment is intertwined with the criminal prosecution then they can go ahead and conduct that intelligence risk assessment without tainting prosecutors and tainting FBI agents down the road, which I think is useful.
Because the last thing you want to do is do something right now to protect the national security, get a conviction and find out it has to be overturned because the agents who saw these things were somehow tainted by looking at them. So that`s one little nugget. That`s helpful.
RUHLE: Barb just said something, Melissa, that I want to stay on. Judge Cannon basically saying these classified documents that are marked classified may not be classified. I mean, Glenn Kirschner wrote a tweet about this saying this is what it looks like when our federal justice system starts to be degraded. On what basis would she say something like that?
MELISSA MURRAY, NYU LAW PROFESSOR: Again, it`s hard to say here I agree completely with Barbara that the DOJ offered Judge Cannon a lifeline which she`s pretty promptly rejected in favor of staying the course with an opinion that I think was widely decried as being untethered from any understanding of the law and some of the principles that issue with regard to executive privilege.
It could be the case that she believes this Shibboleth that the Trump administration has put forth that these documents perhaps were declassified, or perhaps have some belonging to the president, irrespective of the fact that they belong to the administration or the executive more generally.
But it`s really hard to say what she could mean. But it seems like she`s doubling down on this. There are a couple of silver linings as Barb suggested. She`s actually asked the new special master Raymond Dearie, who`s a former judge in the Southern District of New York, to try and review the classified documents first, so he can determine their relevance and then move them along to the DOJ and allow the investigation to keep moving the FBI clearance to keep moving so that is one bright spot. I think in what is otherwise a doubling down on a pretty terrible ruling altogether.
RUHLE: OK, but here`s the thing, John, Melissa is not alone saying this is a pretty terrible ruling. People are saying it`s unjust, they`re saying a type of political, they`re saying it`s corrupt. But once all these bad headlines for Judge Cannon pass, at the end of the day, she`s the judge. And isn`t this a huge win for Trump?
JONATHAN ALLEN, NBC NEWS SENIOR NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: Oh, absolutely, Stephanie. And of course, I`m the non-lawyer on your panel. So I`ll talk a little bit about the politics of this, of course, it`s a huge victory for Trump. There`s going to be a special master. It`s going to be one of the guys that he asked for. The Justice Department basically said, which of the Trump nominees effectively, they didn`t want. And so Dearie is the one that the Justice Department was OK with.
But we`re now going down this road of this special master reviewing all of these claims, attorney-client privilege, executive privilege classification. And, of course, before this case, it was understood by everyone in Washington and around the country who deals with this stuff that if you`re the president of the United States, you don`t get to take things with you from the White House.
So, Trump moves on fights and other day there were some small concessions for the Justice Department here. But huge victory for him. And of course, this judge looking at President Trump, perhaps running for president again in 2024. Maybe thinking about her future and whether she may be elevated on the court.
RUHLE: Melissa, here`s one I did not get. In her decision, the judge makes the argument that we need a neutral third party to decide in talking about the special master. She`s the judge. Isn`t the judge supposed to be the neutral third party, it`s like the umpire calling in an umpire for the game.
MURRAY: Fair point, Stephanie. That is an unusual point to make. I think again, though, the idea that there have been a special master to review these quote unquote, privileged documents and other cases like the Rudy Giuliani case in 2021 and Michael Cohen before that, suggests that there`s precedent here for a special master.
And, honestly, although this is a victory for the former president, and that his particular special master was selected, Judge Dearie is actually I think a more neutral choice than one might expect from the Trump administration.
I frankly, was surprised to see his name on the list. I was expecting something like Jeanine Pirro on the list of proposed special masters there to see Raymond Dearie was actually I`m kind of encouraging. So, he`s a very respected judge, someone who can definitely do this work again, to the extent that there are classified documents here like, well, we have to get certain clearances. That`s an open question that may delay this further. But he`s a solid choice, I think and want and that`s part of the reason why I think the DOJ was willing to assent to this.
RUHLE: But let`s stay on that. You just said it might delay this thing further, right. And Dearie has till November 30. Barb, in everything that we have seen from Donald Trump, everything is delay, delay, slow play things and see what kind of power he has at the end.
How much farther delayed can all of this get? Because we`re going to turn the corner and he`s going to try to run for president again.
MCQAUDE: Well, we`ve seen certainly, Stephanie that he is the master at this game. Think back to those subpoenas that were served years ago for his tax records by Cy Vance in New York. He was the master of this game. He appealed it all the way up to the Supreme Court. And then even after the Supreme Court ruled against him, then he filed more appeals as the lower court judge tried to administer those orders. And so he will stall every step of the way.
The one thing that encourages me about this case is, once this review is over in November, if there is an appeal, it could take a little bit longer. This is not the kind of case that takes months and months and months to investigate. Simply having these documents is itself the crime
And so I think that once this review is completed, it could be charged in fairly short order. But you raise a very good question. I think that that, you know, an announcement of a campaign is not enough to preclude criminal charges. But once Donald Trump starts running for races in primaries in early 2024, I think that`s when the Justice Department`s policy about election year sensitivities could kick in. So, he`s got -- they`ve got about a year and a quarter of year to get this done. But I`m sure that the battle is on between Donald Trump and the Justice Department to see who can win that race.
RUHLE: OK. Well, Trump, of course has given no explanation as to why he took the documents, but he has said over and over, that he declassified them. Our own Kristen Welker has more on that part of the story.
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The former president is striking a defiant tone in a radio interview today a month after the unprecedented search of his Mar-a-Lago home. The FBI saying they seized more than 1,000 government documents, including 100 that were marked classified. Today Mr. Trump saying he verbally declassified every document he had taken with him to Mar-a-Lago.
TRUMP: I have the absolute right to declassify, absolute. A president has that absolute right.
WELKER: Mr. Trump`s legal team, however, has not explicitly said in its filings the President declassified all the documents.
RUHLE: OK, so right there, Melissa, if Trump did declassify this, his legal team would absolutely file that. But they didn`t, because then they would be potentially perjuring themselves. What does it mean to Trump -- what does it mean that Trump now says I declassified it on Hugh Hewitt show, could this now come back to bite him has he has he locked himself into a defense?
MURRAY: Well, I don`t know if it`s necessarily something that will come back to bite him. He says a number of things at any given time. And most of those things are specious. And this is certainly one of the most specious claims if, in fact, he was able to declassify all of these documents and to do so verbally. There would be a huge procedure and set of protocols to go through the process of that declassification. And none of that has happened.
And so, again, a sort of blanket declassification orally seems beyond the pale here. And I think that`s why you don`t see any of his lawyers trumpeting this as a possible defense. Now, whether he chooses to raise this going further, is another matter entirely. But again, I think this is just one of those sorts of claims that gets made overblown and over trumpeted that, again, is typical for the former president and those around him.
RUHLE: Jon, there`s so much news out there. POLITICO is reporting that Trump may be spouting a lot of things, but his allies are really shaken by the January 6 investigation. What more do we know about that? Right, because we`re focused on Mar-a-Lago. There`s a lot going on here.
ALLEN: Yes, there`s nothing that sends a chill up someone`s spine like getting a subpoena from the Justice Department. And those subpoenas are flying right now, as we`ve seen with the reporting from a variety of news sources, including NBC News.
What we`ve got now is a ton of topics being covered. And you can look no further than the Capitol building behind me over my shoulder right now to know where some of this is coming from the January 6 committee. We`ve already gotten a preview of these fake electors. The discussion earlier alternate electors, of course, is being a little euphemistic this fake electoral plot, but basically what you`ve got is a lot of Trump people who are worried about their own skins now and of course, that`s what the Justice Department wants as people who may decide to give up what they know in order to save themselves.
RUHLE: Melissa, is it a big deal that it`s been reported Mark Meadows is complying with the subpoena? We don`t actually know what he`s saying.
MURRAY: Well, it`s been trumpeted that he`s cooperating and I don`t think that`s necessarily the take, we should have at this. He`s complying with a subpoena, which is his obligation to do under the law unless he has some kind of pertinent reason to quash the subpoena, which doesn`t seem like he has but he`s simply providing information that`s been requested.
This is not the same as cooperating. It`s not the same as flipping on the president and again to talk about it as though we`re kin to cooperation I think is a distraction here
Like so much of what we`re seeing around the Trump administration. This is just meant to distract. This is a meaningful development, but it doesn`t mean that Mark Meadows has flipped or that he`s turning on the former president.
RUHLE: Jon, the topics of these subpoenas that the DOJ is are handing out have a lot of overlap with the January 6 committee. What does that tell you?
ALLEN: Well, it tells me that there`s -- has been true all along that there`s an audience of one for the January 6 committee, and that audience has Merrick Garland. And what all of these subpoenas and the information that they`re looking at, Stephanie, is that the Justice Department team is listening to what the January 6 committee is doing, that that committee`s work has put pressure in some ways on the Justice Department to act and they are following all the leads. And I`m sure they were doing some of that work before but all of that public pressure that comes from the revelations that we`ve seen appears to be being followed up upon.
RUHLE: No vacay days the DOJ. John Allen, Melissa Murray, Barbara McQuade, thank you. I wish we had more time because I want to do an entire segment on Melissa`s unbelievable shirt tonight. It`s awesome.
Coming up, America`s rail workers had to threaten to -- threatened to strike a strike that would have shut down the entire country`s supply chain just to get something many of us take for granted, sick days. Congressman Seth Moulton is here next.
And later, the cruel political stunt from Governor Ron DeSantis at the expense of desperate people, and he was taught tax dollars to do it. And then conspiracy theories and lies are fueling the hateful violence President Biden addresses today. The surprising story of where some of those conspiracies come from. That`s later. THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on a Thursday night that you must stick around for.
MARTY WALSH, U.S. LABOR SECRETARY: The railroads, a lot of these workers 80 percent of these workers that work on the railroad don`t have a fixed schedule. A lot of these workers in the railroad, they don`t have Monday through Friday, nine to five. They`re working when -there`s when a train going out. These workers leave their home, they get on a train, they go 36 hours away, they stay in a hotel to get back on the train and come back home. I mean, these workers are working in a very challenging industry. It`s a very dangerous industry.
RUHLE: Sure is rail workers unions and freight rail companies have reached a tentative deal to avoid a strike after three long years of negotiations. Rail workers gained concessions on several things that many of us take for granted every day.
I want to just give one example, as NBC reports, employees will now for the first time be able to take unpaid time off work for routine preventive medical care. So do says one more time. Now they`re not going to be at risk of losing their job if they need to miss work for medical treatment, and they won`t even get paid on that day.
Let`s discuss and bring in Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton. He`s on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Congressman, these workers were asking for very, very basic concessions, like an extra personal day off arrays and time off from medical care. Why was it so hard three years to get here?
REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MS): I mean, it`s insane. We should be talking about paid medical leave, not unpaid medical leave the idea that you can`t even take a sick day, you can`t go get surgery without being docked. In some cases being threatened with being fired. Some railroads had a point system that would take away points if you took a sick day, just to take care of yourself or to take care of your family.
So, there`s a lot of ways in which the rail industry is critical to our economy. It takes 40 percent of our goods across the country, and it`s modernized rapidly. There are a lot of ways in which this system is unbelievably archaic, and the way it treats its workers is certainly one of those ways.
RUHLE: OK, well, just today, I see people, some people freaking out when they say, oh my gosh, these rail workers want a 24 percent raise. How come that upsets people more than the fact in this country? We`ve got CEOs on average of fortune 500 companies who get paid 350 times more than their workers do. And when they fill out their jobs, they get to leave with golden parachutes and multimillion dollar exit packages. How did we get here?
MOULTON: No, that`s right. And let`s just put this in sharp terms for the rail industry specifically, the CEO of Canadian Pacific saw his pay go up 920 percent from 2007 to 2020, 920 percent, not 24 percent, 920 percent. That`s the CEO.
RUHLE: Hold on. I need you tell our audience this one more time, the CEO of one of these companies, his comp went up over a 13-year span over 900 percent?
MOULTON: 920 percent to be precise. That`s right. And we`re freaking out that we give a 24 percent raise over five years and they still don`t get paid when they`re sick.
RUHLE: OK, you`re not just a congressperson. You`re an Ivy League educated man, educate me. To me, this whole potential strike really exposes how extreme income inequality has gotten in this country. You`ve got people doing essential work hard labor, that if they would have had the strike It would have hurt our economy, it would have disrupted our supply chain when all they`re asking for is a basic day off.
How did we get to this point, this country with the American dream where we`re all about American exceptionalism? How -- I don`t even get it?
MOULTON: That`s absurd, right? I mean, since I was born in 1978, we`ve seen worker pay go up about 20 percent, 20 percent in 43 years. That`s it. That`s it. CEO pay has gone up hundreds and hundreds of percent in that time.
So this income gap has only gotten wider, and it keeps getting wider. And what workers are asking for is pretty basic stuff. Now, at the same time, in the last few years, the railroads have actually cut their workforce by about a third. So a third of the people who had jobs at railroads just a few years ago, aren`t even part of the discussion because they`re just out of work. They`ve had to go get other jobs.
So we`ve got a long way to go here. And the railroads are essential. During the same period, the railroads have been pursuing a policy called precision scheduled railroading, which not only dramatically cuts the workforce, it cuts service to customers.
Listen, it`s a very good thing when we have cargo and freight going by rail, a single train can take 200 trucks off the highway. But that`s a lot of responsibility for the two man crew, the two person crew running that train, the responsibility that would rest on the shoulders of 200 truckers.
Rail is very good for the environment. It`s good for our economy, but we treat our railway workers like I shouldn`t say. So, we`ve got a long way to go here. Stephanie, you`re absolutely right. And what the workers have demanded in one to their credit by threatening a strike is actually really, really basic stuff.
RUHLE: You know, does they do not get special treatment, but you know, who does? Members of Congress. I need to ask you about something we`ve talked about a lot on this show. The proposed congressional stop trading ban. It has over 600 sponsors on both sides of the aisle. Bipartisanship is not something we see often for months and months, Congress people like Abigail Spanberger had been trying to get this thing to a vote on the floor. Yesterday for the first time, Nancy Pelosi said they`re getting closer and they`re working on it. And today, Jeff Merkley told Business Insider, a vote won`t happen on the Senate side before the midterms, what can you tell us?
MOULTON: Well, I mean, look, we saw this play out with COVID. I mean, that was probably perhaps the most dramatic example, where you had Republican senators going into COVID briefings, learning how terrible this was dumping all their medical stuff.
RUHLE: I do need to interrupt you for a second. First I said, 600 sponsors, I meant 60. You can`t put this one on Republicans, because you`ve got a whole lot of Democrats doing the same thing.
MOULTON: Look, I mean, I don`t think it was as dramatic as what the Republican senators did, and then got out to the American public and lied and said COVID wasn`t a big deal. But the bottom line is, you`re right, Stephanie. I mean, these are basic reforms. We cannot have anyone in the house for the Senate, abusing the privilege of the office and the privilege of the information we get. I don`t know. I mean, this the bill originated in the Senate. It`s amazing to me that they can simply have a vote on it.
RUHLE: Do you think you`ll be voting on it before you go into recess?
MOULTON: Look, if it doesn`t come out of the Senate, then we`re not going to get a vote on it in the House.
RUHLE: All right, then. We`ll be watching. We`ll be covering it. We`ll be talking about it. Congressman Seth Moulton, always good to see you. Thanks for joining me tonight.
MOULTON: Good to see you too.
RUHLE: When we come back charter flights to Martha`s Vineyard. Sounds like a nice vacation right now. It is actually the latest cruel stunt by two Republican governors to ship migrants from the border into democratic cities. And it turns out it was all on the taxpayer`s dime. Political cruelty on THE 11TH HOUR continues.
RUHLE: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis taken credit for sending airplanes carrying migrants to Martha`s Vineyard. The Orlando Sentinel reporting DeSantis his office confirmed that the state chartered two planes Wednesday to take about 50 undocumented migrants including children from San Antonio, Texas to Martha`s Vineyard, and now people there have mobilized to help in the best way they can. NBC`s Kerry Sanders has more.
KERRY SANDERS, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 48 Venezuelan migrants the youngest only three years old flown to Martha`s Vineyard, Wednesday, will spend another night at a local church. Officials say they were given no notice the migrants were headed there. The charter flights to the wealthy, heavily Democratic enclave where former President Obama has a home arranged by Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA: every community in America should be sharing in the burdens, it shouldn`t all fall on a handful of red states.
SANDERS: A protest against President Biden`s border policies that DeSantis says have led to a record surge of migrants.
DESANTIS: What would be the best is for Biden to do his damn job and secure the order.
SANDERSL As the local Island community and Massachusetts rally to help the migrants today --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of them have been through really horrific things.
RUHLE: With us tonight to discuss democratic pollster and MSNBC political analyst, Fernand Amandi. And Mark McKinnon joins us former adviser to both George W. Bush and John McCain. He`s also among the co-host of the Circus on Showtime.
Mark, I`m not even going to talk about the lack of humanity and the cruelty. I want to talk about the money. Texas`s power grid is hanging on by a thread. Florida, they`ve got infrastructure problems, climate problems, they have a teacher shortage there, that is huge. Why are those governors spending tax dollars on stunts like this? Who does it serve?
MARK MCKINNON, FORMER ADVISER TO JOHN MCCAIN AND GEORGE W. BUSH: Serves them it`s a convenient political tool. We`ve come a long way since give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. And in the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan was a big advocate of immigrants, George W. Bush embraced immigrants.
And I remember 1999, he ran on the issue of reforming immigration, even though a lot of people told him it was dangerous to do so. He said he thought it was the right thing to do. And I think about that, Stephanie. And that was 1999. So that`s been -- it`s been a third of my life since the presidents have been trying to do some and Congress has been trying to do something about immigration reform. Bush got close, but not 11. Or cut in and ruin that with because he had a meeting with Mexico right after that. It didn`t happen. And it hasn`t happened since so.
But I mean, DeSantis makes a relevant point, though, which is that the burden should be shared. I mean, this is an issue where Joe Biden`s playing defense and really hasn`t done much proactively. I don`t think many people can cite, including the presidents of what he`s done on the border. And, you know, why should the southern states bear that burden, and they`re bearing the burden of having to support lots of resources and tax money for those people come across the border. So he has a point.
MCKINNON: And by the way, let me just add, Stephanie, that Department of Homeland Security has been arguing with the Biden administration, to do a program just like this is called interior processing, and taking migrants to LA and to places near the Canadian border with advance notice, so they can be prepared for it.
MCKINNON: So this is something Biden could be, and Republicans kind of took it away. So in a way, it`s kind of an own goal.
RUHLE: But hold on, Mark, that`s not a program just like it. Right. This doesn`t have advance notice. You are taking people with young children ripping them out.
MCKINNON: I agree, but Biden should be doing it. Why isn`t Biden doing it?
RUHLE: I don`t know, Fernand. What do you think about that you live in Florida? The Floridians feel like this is an unfair burden for them. And the way Ron DeSantis is going about solving it there into that.
FERNAND AMANDI, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, first off, Stephanie, I think it`s important to clarify the term political stunt. A political stunt, is Dr. Oz running for the Senate in Pennsylvania, when he resides in New Jersey, a political stunt is Kanye West running for president, a political stunt is Jared Kushner writing a political book that he thinks anyone who really want to read. This is not a political stunt.
When you look at parents that are bringing their children to this country in a legal process for asylum and lie to them under false circumstances and tell them you`re taking them somewhere under false pretenses and using them as props. Stephanie, that is not a political stunt. That is an act of evil.
And it is an act of evil being done by evil men who are using children and good faith parents coming to this country, the land of the free and opportunity like my parents did, and grandparents did, and shaming them for political points in the most cynical calculations, Stephanie.
What`s going on here is they`re trying to change the conversation from the Dobbs decision, overturning Roe vs. Wade and making it about immigration. But it is the most cynical, cheap and evil tactic and I don`t think it`s going to play here in Florida. I think Ron DeSantis overreach this time,
MCKINNON: Well, again, I just raised the point that the Department of Homeland Security has been arguing this was reported on your network, Stephanie. They`ve been arguing to do a program just like this but with advanced notice to say let`s take some of these people and send them to L.A. or Chicago or to the northern border, give them advance notice. So they have time to have the resources and home facilities and what have you to take care of the immigrants. So if Biden we`re doing it, DeSantis couldn`t be doing it. So Biden not to do it.
RUHLE: All right, hold on. You think if Biden were doing this DeSantis would be out there saying thanks so much, Joe Biden. I`m really glad you`ve taken the burden off Florida. Do you think he would do that?
RUHLE: I don`t know, Fernand. What do you think?
AMANDI: I just think it`s absurd this idea that we`re going to use people and human beings that are coming again in a lawful process to seek asylum from a regime as political pawns and political props. That is not what it is going on here.
We`d be one thing if Governor DeSantis or Governor Abbott, were acting in good faith, and sitting down with these individuals that crossed the border seeking asylum and said, Listen, where would you want to go? Is there another area, but to just cavalierly send them as Ron DeSantis did with a videographer on the plane so he could capture this and have his minions at Fox News waiting the moment the plane landed, to put it on the air. It is the most debasing and unAmerican. UnAmerican Act of evil that I`ve seen, it makes me ashamed to be a Floridian under this governor.
My parents came in 1962, thanks to President Kennedy and the governor of Florida who allowed them to come here. They made a successful life. That`s part of the reason why I`m on you`re talking on this network tonight. But to treat these individuals, these people who come here in good faith as political props is evil.
RUHLE: Mark, to your point, even if the spirit of this is supported, even if there were a more humane way to do it, that the Department of Homeland Security could, this isn`t what they did. And according to the Florida budget, the money for this migrant relocation came from interest that was earned from federal COVID relief grants. Given that, is the way DeSantis executed this even legal? I mean, COVID isn`t eradicated in Florida.
MCKINNON: I don`t know the line that I saw Stephanie was that he appropriated $12 million from the Florida budget. So, maybe I`m not asking -- maybe that`s not accurate. But listen, I mean, it`s clear that he`s using migrants as a political tool. And that`s, you know, it`s not in line with our American ideals. No question about that.
I just wish Joe Biden had taken the opportunity to do what his own Department of Homeland Security said to do and get ahead of this, so that he could pull the rug out from under him,why didn`t he, you know, why didn`t he get ahead of this?
RUHLE: So you really think that these migrants who are now suddenly in Martha`s Vineyard, they have no idea where they are many of whom are Venezuelan, who when they get the money, are really just going to make their way back down to Florida, where there`s is infrastructure, and they have extended family members. You think this could have been that it`s OK, that it would go down like this, Mark?
MCKINNON: No, but all I`m saying is that the Department of Homeland Security officials had been arguing to the president, why don`t we share the burden across America? Why don`t we send migrants to different cities around America? Why don`t we give them -- give them advance notice, so that when they get there, they have resources, they have food, they have shelter?
And instead they didn`t do anything much of the frustration of Biden`s own homeland security department. And then so Abbott and DeSantis could take advantage of his inaction. He could have done it.
RUHLE: Could have done it, and now it`s a political stunt that costs a lot of money and hurts a lot of people. Fernand, Mark, thank you both for joining us. I really appreciate it.
Coming up. The President addresses the violence caused by hatred, some of it fueled by lies and conspiracies. Up next, we`re going to show you where some of these lies and conspiracy theories even come from. Some use even heard, guess where? Trump rallies. That`s when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: We need to say clearly, unfortunately, white supremacy, all forms of hate, fueled by violence have no place in America. Fair to call it out as complicity. My dad would say if your silence is complicity. We can`t remain silent. There`s those who say we bring this up. We just divide the country bring it up, we silence it. Instead of remaining silence. For in silence, wounds deepened.
RUHLE: President Biden once again blasting hate fueled political violence in our nation, violence that exists in large part because of lies and conspiracies. We`re all very, very familiar with Donald Trump`s big lie, the one that sparked the Capitol riot. But there are many other lies about things like Barack Obama`s birthplace, and the so called Deep State and the new Peacock docu series Shadowland aims to explore it all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A conspiracy theory is a theory that there`s someone figured that is pulling the strings.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are wealthy powerful families that control everything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Nazis are coming. They`re here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our elections were stolen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You devil worshipping Satan is witch.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The rule of law in this country has been eliminated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s money to be made here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are dying that don`t need to.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`re trying to manufacture anger.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I lost everything I ever worked for.
UNIDETNIFIED MALE: I miss my dad all the time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is really pulling people in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m never going to talk some big kid.
RUHLE: Here with us tonight, Joe Berlinger, Oscar nominated documentary filmmaker and executive producer of Shadowland. All six episodes of the series will premiere September 21st on Peacock. Joe, this is a stunning piece of work you put together. I want to know did any one person one event get us to this point?
JOE BERLINGER, "SHADOWLAND" EXEC. PRODUCER: That`s a great question. You know, the easy answer is, first of all, thank you for having me. I`m a big fan of the show. The easy answer, of course, is social media. But I actually look further back. There was a time when there were, you know, three networks. And there was a dividing line between, you know, the news division and the entertainment division. And at a certain point, the line fell and ratings and selling ads and all that stuff became important for news, and then the explosion of cable networks and 24 hour news cycle.
I think our generally our media culture has allowed a lot of opinion to get into the dialogue. And that then intersected with social media. And it`s been a decade`s long progression of where people just don`t know what the truth is, well, certain people don`t know what the truth is. And it`s deeply troubling.
You know, like my iPhone is the greatest device you can imagine. We`ve never had more information and available at our fingertips. But there`s never been a time where the truth has been so elusive for so many people. And I think this is this is destroying democracy.
And for this show, what I wanted to do was really not get into the fingerpointing and the demonization that has happened. We`ve divided into two camps, and we demonize one another. And we -- each side looks at the other side, as you know, as two dimensional human beings and we don`t have any dialogue anymore. And I think that`s the -- that is destroying the democracy, it will destroy democracy if people can`t come together and compromise.
And so instead of doing the usual fingerpointing, I wanted to do a deep dive into the world of conspiracy thinking, understand, at least try to understand how people come to their views, you know, without judgment.
RUHLE: What I found most fascinating, when you follow these stories, what you end up following is the money. People don`t realize that much of this whole conspiracy theory universe is really a multibillion dollar industry, Alex Jones, probably the best known, but he`s only the tip of the iceberg, isn`t he?
BERLINGER: Exactly people want. We follow a guy named Pastor Locke, who wants to build his church. We follow people who are wanting to sell products. So, there are people who know better. There are political leaders who know that. There are people in Congress who know better, but they`re taking advantage and manipulating regular people for whom life has not gone well. And they`re looking for an answer. And that`s the thing that`s shameful that I find in, you know, our leaders who are unknowingly promoting conspiracy theories.
But they`re -- What we`ve learned, like we spend time with a woman in rural Pennsylvania, she owns a pizza shop, if you were driving through rural Pennsylvania and stopped off at a pizza shop, she thinks she was a lovely person, and you`d want to sit and chat with her and she felt feels like, you know, an American. And yet she`s in January 6 in the capitol calling for Nancy Pelosi`s head and she`s sitting in prison right now awaiting trial.
But she deeply believes, you know, I want to have empathy for these people who, because of the people who are making money off her and manipulating her politically. I want to have some empathy to try to understand where these people are coming from so that we can talk because if we don`t talk we are headed down a very dangerous path. My opinion.
RUHLE: Decency, empathy, compassion, those are things we all need to have. Calling for Nancy Pelosi`s head and storming the Capitol, not so much. Joe Berlinger, thank you so much, and you at home can watch Shadowland on Peacock starting Wednesday. I highly recommend it.
Coming up. The political stunt poll by those two governors isn`t even an original idea. We`re going to show you the same stunt from 60 years ago, when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
MARGARET MOSELEY, CO-FOUNDER OF CAPE COD NAACP: Most of the people who came had only a shopping bag was perhaps one change of clothing, no money, knowing nobody. It was one of the most inhuman things that I have ever seen.
RUHLE: The last thing before we go tonight, the reverse freedom rides. Ron DeSantis`s cruel stunt yesterday echoes one pulled exactly 60 years ago. In 1962 a group of conservatives furious over the civil rights movement and the Freedom Rides throughout the South the year before hatched a cruel plan intended to upset liberals up in the north.
They handed out flyers like this one on your screen, recruiting southern black families to get on buses to northern states with the false promise of good jobs and housing when they arrived. One place in particular was Hyannis in Cape Cod, where the Kennedys vacationed. Take a listen to what the architects of the Reverse Freedom Rides had to say at the time.
GEORGE SINGLEMANN, GREATER NEW ORLEANS CITIZENS` COUNCIL: The ultimate accomplishment of course, has already been obtained, and that is to focus attention on the hypocrisy of the Northern liberals and the NAACP, Urban League and people like that especially.
AMIS GUTHRIDGE, PRESIDENT OF CAPITAL CITIZENS` COUNCIL: We intend to continue it until all those people in the majority tell those politicians we are through with this foolishness about civil rights and things that you`re using for political purposes.
RUHLE: Sound familiar? Well, the joke was on them, much like it is on Governor Ron DeSantis. Because the community rallied around these families who arrived in Cape Cod. As historian Clive Webb put it, the white conservatives who are behind that campaign then actually underestimated the decency of many ordinary people. And we are seeing the very same thing today in Martha`s Vineyard, restaurants, students, people all over volunteering to help those in need. It is an important reminder never ever underestimate the decency of ordinary people. And without decency, we have nothing.
And on that note, I wish you all a very good night. From all of our colleagues across the networks of NBC News, thanks for staying up late. I`ll see you at the end of tomorrow.