Together in Texas: Part 2

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1:02Welcome back to MSNow Live together in Texas. We're MSNow Super fans got a chance to meet some of their favorite hosts. We've already seen Ali Belchys Stephanie Rule Reverend Al Sharpton, Ari Melberg, Gen Socky and Rachel Maddow. But we're not done yet. Coming up this hour, Gen Socky makes another appearance this time with the Texas Democrat trying to flip a Trump district. Chris Hayes, it's Dallas special guest Stacy Abrams. And Rachel Maddow is also back to close things out with Lawrence O'Donnell. But first, my co-host of the weeknight. That's great. Amazing. Very nice. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we love to be at your dinner table every night. And thank you so much for your support watching us. It means the world. And we like to have a dinner table conversation. We like to have free-flowing conversation. We're all very quiet humble people.

2:03So if you can't hear us, we'll speak up. But before we were all on TV in our current capacity, I used to cover campaigns. This guy was the chairman of the Republican Party that won a record 63 seats in 2010. So he knows how to run campaigns. And Simone Sanders-Tanson was one of the architect of the Bernie campaign and of the body campaign. So we have some experts in the house. So why don't we just get right into it? Yeah, there's a map. There it is. I have one issue with the map. We're going to talk about it. But Mississippi is not on here. And I'm very bullish about the Mississippi. You heard it here at first. Very bullish about Democrats' opportunities in Mississippi. Let's talk about where we are, Texas. How do you see it here? You as a Republican said on our air, if you're the Republican party, you don't want to be spending money in Texas. But they're spending a lot of money here right now because they're trying to play defense because Talleriko is really giving them a run for them.

3:08Yeah. They're spending... Republicans are spending a lot of money in Texas because they have a problem in Texas. And they have a problem in Texas because they listened to Donald Trump and nominated a person who could not translate with Texas. And they don't want to support him. And you see the base sort of fractured, which is why the numbers look the way they look. And so look, I can tell you honestly, as someone who was a county chairman, a state chairman, a national chairman, the last place on the planet I want to spend money on is in my backyard when the person who is the titular head of our party won that backyard by significant numbers. And the fact that you now, two years later, have to come and dump loads of cash means you're not putting that money into some other strategically more important states, which we'll get into. Like Michigan and Ohio and elsewhere.

4:10And even to some most point, the fact that Mississippi is as close as it is tells you that the brand sucks. The candidates...the candidates, the GOP have put up suck harder. And the messaging is all about reflecting pools, east wing, ballrooms and all of that. And one of the three things that we see that they're running on because there's not a lot of a platform, right? It's that somehow Democrats are simultaneously for Sharia law, communism, and making your child trans. That's what they have. And if you've got a child, a trans child who's a communist who follows Sharia law. Yeah. Let's look at that map for a second. Now, Democrats to get control. They got a whole Michigan and New Hampshire.

5:14So far, they've been looking good there. There's a little consternation about New Hampshire, but it seems like they're in the place... I think they're still concerned. But now, Georgia and North Carolina, the Republican Party has stopped spending money there. Right. That's significant. Which is very significant. He should not gloss over what Luke just said. That's a huge deal. To be very clear, coming into this cycle, John Allsoft was viewed as the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent. So much so to the...I know, yeah, I know, right? So much so to the point that I was always looking at all the things Allsoft was doing and saying. He was one of the first folks to talk about the EBSC in class out there on the campaign trail. And I always said, if John Allsoft is talking about doing these things and he's the most vulnerable person, he has his finger on the pulse of where the voters are. The fact that Republicans have now said it is not worth it for us to spend money in Georgia. Means that the Allsoft campaign has done something right, but also that the vote... And North Carolina. It's in...

6:14What does that say? Just bring it full circle to what Simone just said. What were we talking about before and what it Luke mentioned about, you know, having the money and how much money Elon must was spending, how much money the GOP has with all that money. They're not spending it in North Carolina. So if all that money was going to win the election, don't you think they would spend it in North Carolina? No, they're not, because what the voters have told them, we've done with y'all. We've made up our mind and we're likely going in a different direction. The critical thing right now is folks, we are at a point where we have a president who not only is planning to, but has started the process of disrupting the upcoming elections. I'm putting the flare up now. Insurrection Act or martial law are going to be on the table. And I think as citizens we need to be alert to that. And that's why what Luke is in Simone and I've been talking about in terms of the infrastructure being there is so important.

7:18What the DNC has done, and I know the chairman has gotten a lot of crap for, you know, how some of this has come together. But when you go back and you look at it, he has put a lot of the money, the DNC chairs put a lot of money in the states and some critical states that you're now beginning to reap the benefits from. And that cannot be underestimated nor overlooked. Why? Because of what lies ahead? The last thing I will just say is, you have to make your plan about, but I think this election cycle, everybody has to be willing to do a little bit more. So that means you might need to sign up to be a poll worker. You might need to sign up to do some election protection work if you are a lawyer. You might need to sign up to answer the hotline. Everybody has to do a little bit more work because they are absolutely trying to steal this election. But you know what they can't rig an overwhelming number at the ballot box if you overrun the poll. And real quickly, what we've learned from seeing other authoritarian regimes around the world never waste an election.

8:21We just saw in Hungary those folks did not waste an election. They were able to turn the tide. No one thought that was possible when people band together anything is possible. All right. All right. Some Ole Sanders tells you Michael Steal. Great to be here. The weeknight. Straight ahead, Jen Socky sits down with a Latin Grammy winner looking to flip a red district in South Texas. They said that she would not be able to be beat because they had drawn the map for her and I said, the hell she can't be beat. Plus Chris Hayes talks to Stacey Abrams about one of the most surprising races of the nation. And we close things out with Rachel Maddow and Lauren Sodonal taking your question. We'll be right back. Hi, it's me, your gutters. I want to start by saying I'm fine. Everything is totally fine. There's just, there's a lot of debris up here and I've been managing it mostly on my own for about eight months now.

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10:25Don't just record a break-in. Stop it from ever happening. Play and starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplysafe.com slash sxm. 30 seconds response time requires monitoring plan with outdoor protection starting in 4,990 months. Visit simplysafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information. Welcome back to MSNOW LIVE TOGETHER IN TEXAS. We are at the beautiful UT Arlington campus where Jen Socky sat down with Bobby Palito, the two-time Latin Grammy winner, who was putting Republicans on defense in a Trump district in South Texas. Here they are. Hello everyone! Hi everyone! Okay. This is the most energizing amazing crowd. First of all, you all are incredible. Thank you for all having all of us in Texas.

11:40So first of all, who in here has been following Bobby Palito's race? Alright, let's hear you've all been following. Who here wants to know more about Bobby Palito's race? Okay. Okay. So we are in the perfect crowd for you right now. Welcome to Texas. Well, it's delightful to be here. Let me start by saying something to you that I've never said to a politician, which is congratulations on your sixth Latino Grammy nomination. Right? Pretty incredible. Thank you. And I think for the people in here who are getting to know you or maybe who didn't know you, I want to start by just asking you how Tejano Music star ended up running for Congress. What was the past there? Well, I was a political science major in college and I was a Texas boy stator. I've always loved government and public service. And early on, that's what I wanted to do. But I come from a musical family. My father is a very famous to Hano Singer as well.

12:45And so, you know, I got into music. My dad's Roberto Palito. And so I got offered a record deal while I was in college. I was almost about to graduate. And I took the leap of faith with music and I've had a blessed 30 years. And yeah, so... In 22, for the first time in the Rio Grande Valley, we had a Republican representative. The very first time. And it really bothered me. Because the Rio Grande Valley is the lowest per capita income in the state. And I knew that we were going to have a representative that was going to cut a lot of things that people really needed down there. And so they said that she would not be able to be beat because they had drawn the map for her to favor her. And I said, the hell she can't be beat. How many of you are familiar with the Kingston Yara attack from Monica De La Cruz? Okay, for those of you who are not because this is such a fun part of your campaign.

13:51Oh, there's a request. We'll come get your request. We'll ask you to hold. Well, you may be too. Maybe it's a birthday party. Okay, here's Monica De La Cruz attacks you. I remember this so distinctly. Right after you won the nomination. And I called out your race that night as one to watch. I just want to say, but she attacked you that night. She said, this election isn't about who you want performing at your niece's Kingston Yara. That was her... One of her first attacks, right? Here's one of the things I love about this. You flipped that on a Ted. You have now performed... I don't even... almost 90 something around their Kingston Yara's. Right? And probably thousands of requests. But tell us... We've had 5,000 requests. 5,000 requests. Tell us a little bit about that experience. And what...

14:51Your reaction initially must have been... what the heck. And then it was, what are we going to do about this? So tell us a little bit about this. Of course, you know, she tried... first thing, she tried to be like Trump. Right? Insulting and demeaning and that same type of thing. But she's not that bright. And that's saying a lot. But she ended up being having a better campaign strategist in my campaign manager. Because she gave me a great idea. I was like, well, what if I have them invite me if they want and I'll show up. And it's the best way to campaign because like, you see working class people that you never will never, ever see them in the course of a campaign. Because they're too busy working. So you see them at Friday nights or Saturday nights. And they probably have a little beer in their hand or something. They're happy. You make the young lady really happy. You show up. You sing to her. It's all about family tradition. And the irony in all of this. The irony in all of this is that my district is 15 like Guin Sanierra is Guin San. It will forever be known as the Guin Sanierra district.

16:03I think so. No one's going to tell you that in the future. I do think that one of the things that you hear out there that a lot of people who voted for Trump feel buyers remorse about is the corruption. And the self-dealing and the, you know, he brought he went in and he promised to help working people. And now he's just patting his own pockets and those of his sons. I would note as well. How does that sit? How are you not come up? I'm telling you that's that's a big, big deal. Right. Because I mean, when people are suffering and they trust me, they are. When they're suffering and they see that he's not suffering. Or he doesn't really care about their suffering. And he said that right. I don't really care about people's economic situations. He does say the quiet word out loud sometimes. Yeah. I think that we try to play and talk about every now and again. I think there's a lot of there's a reset that's coming. And I just want to be able to capture that and to make sure that we have the proper representation and that we can we can now work to things that unify us, nothing to divide us.

17:09I use enforcement has been, you know, terrorizing communities across the country, including in Texas. I know under the current governor, that's something that Texas has been dealing with for quite some time. I'm not many Greg Abbott fans in the room. I'm not hearing Greg Abbott. Don't come on down here. Me neither. I just wonder, you know, you've talked about that as an economic issue very much in terms of how it impacts the district you're running. And it's also a moral issue. Can you talk about both of them and how it's impacting you? I'm not going to talk about this. It is a moral issue. There's not a building in the Rio Grande Valley that was built without immigrant hands, not one. And the Rio Grande Valley was known as a magical Rio Grande Valley. It was a farming community. My grandfather was a migrant farm worker and my father was when we was younger.

18:09We had a lot of work to do with the work that we've done. We've come from wealth. We're hardworking people. And for the first time in many in the generation of the family, we have small business owners that are just now trying to make a living. And there's not a workforce because here's what happens, right? There's not a trade school that teaches you how to pour concrete. There isn't a trade school that teaches you how to frame a house or or or roof. You can't allow people from the community and you do it with fear. That community cannot function property. So what we're seeing right now is small business owners that tend to be Republican chamber of commerce. And the leaders are really angry. It turns out that the movie a day without a Mexican was true. And they ran on this notion because fear is their number one tactic is that immigrants, the scary immigrant, right? It's always something that if you got rid of the people like that, life would get better. It got worse. And people are seeing that right now.

19:17It's very important that we fix our immigration issue because on a humanitarian level, it makes sense. On an economic level, it also makes sense. All right. Bobby Polito. Thank you so much. It was a great conversation. Thank you all so much for having us to here in Texas. Coming up Chris Hayes and Stacy Abrams on the fight against GOP efforts to rig the election. Plus Rachel Maddow talks to Lauren Sondonal about the first time he called Trump a liar on national TV. You're watching MSNow Live Together in Texas. We'll be right back. Hi, it's me, your gutters. I want to start by saying I'm fine. Everything is totally fine. There's just there's a lot of debris up here. And I've been managing it mostly on my own for about eight months now. And I just thought maybe you could find someone on Angie to clean me up.

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21:36Outdoor to turn plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simply safe.com slash licenses for alarm license information. I think Texas will slip in November. The president right now is not doing anything he said he's going to do. He gets a Monday one. We're at the midterms and nothing's happened. All right, please welcome to the stage Chris Hayes and Stacy Abrams, a special guest to talk about the importance of voting and keeping our democracy on track. Hey, holy smokes. What a crowd. Hello. Hi. It's cool. I feel like I'm about to get nominated to the President of the United States. I want to start on what I think is one of the most interesting and I think someone say surprising races in the nation right now. And it's a place that you know well.

22:41Here's the latest you go of poll out of the state of Georgia. And it's not the Senate race. Now we should say the Senate race. John Assoff has has proven to be a very adept. Very adept. He is an incumbent. He is doing I think an incredible job politically and is all the polling would suggest he's winning that race. Yes. But the governor's would suggest he's winning that race. What's that? My Collins would suggest he's winning. Yes. But the governor's race. Keisha Lance bottoms. It was Mayor of Atlanta. Right now is polling in a basically a dead heat with Rick Jackson. Now this is something that I think is surprised some people. I don't think it was quite on people's radar screen necessarily. But I think it was also a sense in which sometimes these states of states like Georgia is easier to sort of flip at that federal level before you flip the gubernatorial level.

23:43And this has been true. You know, in other states that went the other way west Virginia, for instance, right? Had like Democrats in the state legislature for a long time, even after they started sending Republican centers. What is your read about what's going on in Georgia right now? So Georgia is a competitive state where purple state. And as you pointed out. And as I have demonstrated, it is a lot easier to flip the federal at the Georgia level than the state level. You know something about it. I've put in my application a couple of times. And the reality is people see the federal impact and import differently than they see the state. But Republicans have been in charge of the state of Georgia for 20 plus years. And they have managed to prove their incompetence on every level. I would like to think of my prior runs as reminders, first lessons and then reminders. And now we have the opportunity with Keisha's race and up and down the ballot, including state ledges races to actually remind Georgians that we're entitled to more.

24:51And I think because of the ignominy at the federal level, because of the harm done at the state level, we have a real deal. And we have a real chance to win state wide elections in Georgia. And that's the progress that we talk about. It's not going to happen in one fell swoop. But every election that we make progress in, we make it more possible to win these white races. Back in 2014, I went to Georgia to interview you. You were a state legislator. And we did a special. Do we have that tape somewhere? There we are. Look at us. And we did a special where you were talking about a kind of theory that you had about how you could turn Georgia blue. This is 2014 where that seemed pretty. You didn't laugh, but I appreciate it. No, I took it very seriously. Take me through the theory and take me through how it's played out and take me through what you were right about and what you maybe were wrong about or didn't anticipate. So in 2011, when I became minority leader, it was after a census year.

25:55And what the census told me and Republicans too was that the composition of Georgia was different. What had not changed was the outreach. We were running campaigns that were largely designed for the previous electorate and the previous elections. My theory of the case was that if you only talk to the people you'd always talk to, you would get the results that we'd been getting. And so our first responsibility was to reach beyond what was comfortable to people who hadn't proven their fealty but were open to suggestion. The second was that you had to actually prove that democracy could do something. The democracy as a construct is not compelling. People care about their lives. And so we had to do the work as a party out of power to show what was harming them, but what possibility looked like. The third was that it was going to take time. And when we talked in 2014, I'd been proselytizing for about three years. And I kept saying we have to invest and that investment cannot be itinerant and it cannot only be tied to federal elections.

26:57You had to go up and down the ballot. You had to go across the state and you had to talk to people that you'd been told to write off. What was that mean? Who are those people? Voters of color had largely been overlooked because the presumption was that they either wouldn't vote or didn't care. And I think voter apathy is a curse word. If people aren't apathetic, they're in despair or they feel disregarded or there's voter suppression. And so we have to solve for what's blocking them. I believe that voter apathy is victim blaming. If you call it apathy, it's their fault. If you call it suppression or despair or disregard, we've got to do something about it. And so it was finding those buckets of voters. It was going to places where we were going to lose. You don't have to win everyone. And you don't have to win everywhere, but you can aggregate the numbers. And so we had to start going to, you had to leave Atlanta. Although Atlanta is like half the state. You had to go other places. And then to your question of what we missed or what I got wrong, I thought when we started to win, I'd be like,

28:03I didn't realize, I've plegged it at 2020. It's 2026. We're still working at it. And the reality is that it's insufficient to tell people what's wrong or even what's possible. You've got to show them that you're going to stay in the fight after you lose. And what I've tried to model is like, you're not getting rid of me that easily. But that you've got to own what you did wrong. You've got to own mistakes that you make in a campaign. And you and I talked about this a little bit. That too often we are so, myopically focused on winning. We forget the progress counts too. And when people see consistency, that, it doesn't feel as good as victory that day. But consistency, you count on the parent who's always showing up. Not the one who gives you the stuff you want that day. And so you got to keep showing up. And I think that's the part where if we get that right, we will start to win even more. We have watched in the last 12 years a dismantling of an entire federal superstructure to protect people's vote and the right to vote.

29:10A right to vote that's enshrined in the actual constitution. You know, in the 50th Amendment, although then had to be kind of re-inshrined in the statutory law of the Voting Rights Act. It's very clear that it's incredibly evident that on the right, particularly Donald Trump, the people around him think that the way to win elections is to veto who gets to vote. The executive mail order, the executive order on mailing voting would literally allow the post office to do that to just be like, yes, no, yes, no. What do you see as the landscape about voting access now in this brave new world that we're in? Georgia, Texas, Florida, pioneered this engineering of the electorate. Georgia had a version of SAVE before it was federal law. In 2018, Brian Kemp, for the second time, held hostage a bunch of voters using a system that wasn't designed for that purpose in order to preclude participation from populations he didn't like.

30:10Mail in voting was made more and more difficult here in Texas. Florida just doesn't like anybody, and so they've done all of the stuff. And so what we need to understand is that voter suppression is the most efficient system of stealing democracy, because democracy relies on your ability to be heard. But unlike the 60s, unlike Jim Crow, voter suppression no longer requires that you wholesale deny the right to vote. We are now in shaving margins. We're going to use sports terminology. They're trying to shave points, and you shave points by picking the populations that are the easiest to push away, and then you redraw the lines to make certain that they don't have anyone to vote for if they get to show up. And then at the very end, you tried to weaponize the counting system so that you can't actually prove that they showed up at all. Voter suppression is, can you register and stay on the rolls? Can you cast a ballot and does a ballot get counted? Now, we know they're going to cheat and manipulate these systems. If you know it, the question is it will they? It's how do we respond?

31:19And that's what we've tried to prove in Georgia. You walked through the successes we've had in Georgia. Every time we have seen electoral progress, they've changed the rules every single time. And so our job is never to allow them to outwork us or outthink us. If they're going to make it hard, let's say, hold my beer and find a way to get over it. Take the answer and say it to gentlemen. Thank you very much. Coming up, Rachel Maddow and Lauren Sodowell are up next taking questions from the audience, including how long they think it will take the next president to return things to normal. You're watching MSNL Live, Together in Texas. I'm most excited to see Lauren Sodowell and order a special t-shirt for the event. I love them all, but it's a great show. Rachel's everything. All right, ladies and gentlemen. You know what?

32:20I'm going to do a great show. I'm going to do a great show. I'm going to do a great show. I'm going to do a great show. I'm going to do a great show. I'm going to do a great show. All right, ladies and gentlemen. You know what time it is. It's time for the big event. This is prime time democracy in action. Please, welcome to the stage. The two that help us make sense of it all. The most trusted voices in cable TV. The team behind the best handoff in all of television. The Living Legend, MSNL's Rachel Maddow and Lauren Sodowell. Yes.

33:27Here she is. Here she is. Here she is. You do. Yeah. Laurence. I have a thing for you. You do. I do. I'm glad one of us came prepared. Because I have nothing. All right, what is it? I asked them to pull a screenshot of your show from November 6th, 2024. So this was the first show after the election. And this was, in fact, the night on which Kamala Harris had given her concession speech. And Laurence and his team noticed the relevance and the significant, the symbolic significance of the exact location where Vice President Harris gave that speech.

34:29She spoke in front of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall at Howard University. And that night, you quoted Frederick Douglass. And you said, Frederick Douglass wrote, the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. And then Laurence, you said, speaking to the audience, you said your endurance is about to be tested. 167 years after Frederick Douglass said, the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. You said, it is our turn. It is our turn. And we are not alone. We know how to do this. We have done it before. We endured those four years once before. And we resisted every day of those disgraceful Trump years

35:32in the White House. So, first of all, I wanted you to thank you for that from night one of the era in which we still now live. But now as we come up, the alarm clock is basically set two years from then. How are we doing? How's your endurance? How's your endurance? You know, it's moments like this, it's a place like this that makes me realize what that endurance means and what it means as a collective action because it isn't something we're doing individually. And to see people collected together with that same spirit is really inspiring to me.

36:32You know, because we do this very close to being alone in a room. I mean, we have Eddie and Bernie. There's a couple of people in the room with us. But it's in terms of audience, we're alone in a room. Very hard to get a laugh out of Bernie or Eddie. Yes, it's true. Once in a while. Once in a while. But, and so you're there. We know you're out there. We see the numbers that say you're out there, but we don't see you. And this is very special to us to be able to be able to do that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because we are doing these, I feel, I feel as though we are doing these shows with you. And I know that when it's, you know, four o'clock in the afternoon and ten o'clock is rapidly approaching, my thinking isn't exactly literal. It wouldn't be easy to describe.

37:32But one of the things that I'm kind of going inside to try to find is what are we feeling? Meaning this happened today. This was said. This outrage occurred. I don't really think of it in terms of what I'm feeling. Because that's really not good enough. It's what are we feeling? What are we the people who will gather at 10 p.m. feeling? And I have a sense of what that is by now. And what I'm trying to do is share all of our feelings at that time. And so I try to find the heart of it more than the, that's more important to me than the specificity of the feeling. The specific facts that get laid out. Because really by the time you get to 10, most of the people watching will know most of the specific facts, especially when I follow Rick.

38:34Okay. Tell me, tell me if you agree with me on this. This is about, it's about Lawrence. It's about Lawrence. You don't know what I'm going to say yet. Frequently Lawrence, when I listen to you, particularly in your Able. You are just so unafraid. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Nice. Nice. Nice. Yeah. Nice. How do I? How do I know? Thank you. I think you feel in the room how valuable that is to all of us. But as your colleague, I want you to know how valuable it is to me too. Because I aspire to the level of cool collected bravery that you show every now.

39:38Well, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't feel unafraid. You know, instead of the word unafraid, what I would use for what it actually feels to, I just feel clear about it. I feel very clear about it. The very first time Donald Trump mentioned President Obama's birth certificate, I went on at 10 o'clock that night and I said, and I said, that is a lie. And I said, and I said, he is a liar. Now, now, in terms of things that you didn't, you don't know that can be said, that was one of them at that time. No one said that. That was not a word. New York Times didn't use that word. No one used that word in describing the things that he would say. But I knew that I could. The reason that, one of the reasons I knew that I could is that I grew up outside of this business,

40:38because this business has all of its own constraints. And I developed all of my knowledge of the world outside of this business. And I developed it with some pretty tough people who were pretty clear on a lot of things and knew how to say things very clearly. And I knew I could say it because I knew it's actually true that it's a lie. And I knew that would be no lawsuit, even though Donald Trump threatened at the time to sue me, and I knew he wouldn't, because I knew he knows it's a lie, and you can't, you know, lie it. But just to show you, just to show you kind of how outside of the realm of what could be said that was, I said that in 2011. The New York Times used the word lie in describing what Donald Trump said for the very first time, five years later. And they used it in September of 2016 when Donald Trump was already the Republican nominee for president.

41:39And they did it on the lower. I'll never forget it. The lower left corner of the front page of the New York Times, and they used the word lie in the headline with Donald Trump. And you know what lie they were talking about? They were talking about the five-year-old lie about Barack Obama's births in the West. Barack Obama's births in the West. It took the business five years to get it on that. And I think if I had grown up in that business, I would have been five years behind, too. Thank you, Lawrence. I hear you. Richard R. from DeSoto wants to ask you, Lawrence, how long after the current term ends, will it take the next president to return things to normal? Well, the next Democratic president is going to issue more executive orders on the first day of any president in history,

42:42including Trump, because he's going to have to undo every one of the Trump ones, and then add some other necessary ones. And most of the repair can be done reasonably quickly if you have the legislative majority's necessary to do that, to restore funding to USAID and all of that. But you need the legislative majority. That's the key to the whole thing. Should the next president unpave the Rose Garden immediately? I know. I think we have an answer from the room. Yeah, we have an answer from the room. Here is this important. You're going to like this question. This is from Shannon from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Shannon, thanks for driving over. This is for Rachel. She says, I'm a journalist who has been covering the small community of Inola, Oklahoma,

43:43where they are trying to fight a proposed aluminum smelter, both the current governor and the probable future governor are for it. How can I help this community fight against it while still maintaining journalistic integrity? Wow. That is fascinating and interesting. I love Oklahoma. I love Tulsa. I have a new documentary coming out about McCurten County, Oklahoma. I would just say, in general, in principle, if you're a journalist who is covering what you think is a noble fight, it's not necessarily the best use of your skills and your commitment to quit your job as a journalist and join the fight. You as a journalist can simply report on the truth that is the nobility of the people you are covering. And people come to me on this topic adjacent when it comes to covering protests against the Trump administration.

44:52And that's something that we've really focused on on my show in this second term is all over the country, the way people have protested against Trump. And there is... I'm not doing any... I'm not organizing. I'm not my self-enactivist. I'm doing nothing to make those protests happen. But by covering that work of the American people with, I think, the dignity and the respect and the nuance that it deserves, it ends up being very catalyzing to people. And... I just think that always and everywhere, in journalism, if you can shine a respectful, honest, thorough spotlight on the best of your fellow citizens, doing the hardest work of citizenship, you'll move more people than you can ever imagine to move almost through any other means.

45:59Ladies and gentlemen, one more time, Rachel Maddow! Thank you so much! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! That does it for this year's fan event. Thanks to everyone who attended in-person, and to those tuning in at home. We'll see you at the next one. You know, I think we just played hard out there, executed our game plan. I just give thanks to God, and my teammates really, it's really all about them. Hi, it's me, your gutters. I want to start by saying, I'm fine, everything is totally fine. There's just... there's a lot of debris up here, and I've been managing it mostly on my own for about eight months now, and I just thought maybe you could find someone on Angie to clean me up?

46:59You don't have to make it a whole thing, it doesn't need to be a whole thing. I just... I could really use your help. Your gutters have waited long enough. Find a pro at Angie.com.