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Standing in front of the partial ruins of Romes Colosseum, Boris Johnson explained that a motive to tackle the climate crisis could be found in the fall of the Roman empire. Then, as now, he argued, the collapse of civilization hinged on the weakness of its borders.

When the Roman empire fell, it was largely as a result of uncontrolled immigration the empire could no longer control its borders, people came in from the east and all over the place, the British prime minister said in an interview on the eve of crucial UN climate talks in Scotland. Civilization can go into reverse as well as forwards, as Johnson told it, with Romes fate offering grave warning as to what could happen if global heating is not restrained.

This wrapping of ecological disaster with fears of rampant immigration is a narrative that has flourished in far-right fringe movements in Europe and the US and is now spilling into the discourse of mainstream politics. Whatever his intent, Johnson was following a current of rightwing thought that has shifted from outright dismissal of climate change to using its impacts to fortify ideological, and often racist, battle lines. Representatives of this line of thought around the world are, in many cases, echoing eco-fascist ideas that themselves are rooted in an earlier age of blood-and-soil nationalism.

In the US, a lawsuit by the Republican attorney general of Arizona has demanded the building of a border wall to prevent migrants coming from Mexico as these people directly result in the release of pollutants, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In Spain, Santiago Abascal, leader of the populist Vox party, has called for a patriotic restoration of a green Spain, clean and prosperous.

In the UK, the far-right British National party has claimed to be the only true green party in the country due to its focus on migration. And in Germany, the rightwing populist party Alternative for Germany has tweaked some of its earlier mockery of climate science with a platform that warns harsh climatic conditions in Africa and the Middle East will see a gigantic mass migration towards European countries, requiring toughened borders.

Meanwhile, Frances National Front, once a bastion of derisive climate denial, has founded a green wing called New Ecology, with Marine Le Pen, president of the party, vowing to create the worlds leading ecological civilization with a focus on locally grown foods.

Environmentalism [is] the natural child of patriotism, because its the natural child of rootedness, Le Pen said in 2019, adding that if youre a nomad, youre not an environmentalist. Those who are nomadic do not care about the environment; they have no homeland. Le Pens ally Herv Juvin, a National Rally MEP, is seen as an influential figure on the European right in promoting what he calls nationalistic green localism.

Simply ignoring or disparaging the science isnt the effective political weapon it once was. We are seeing very, very little climate denialism in conversations on the right now, said Catherine Fieschi, a political analyst and founder of Counterpoint, who tracks trends in populist discourse. But in place of denial is a growing strain of environmental populism that has attempted to dovetail public alarm over the climate crisis with disdain for ruling elites, longing for a more traditional embrace of nature and kin and calls to banish immigrants behind strong borders.

Millions of people are already being displaced from their homes, predominately in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, due to disasters worsened by climate change such as flooding, storms and wildfires. In August, the United Nations said Madagascar was on the brink of the worlds first climate change famine.

The number of people uprooted around the world will balloon further, to as many as 1.2 billion by 2050 by some estimates, and while most will move within their own countries, many millions are expected to seek refuge across borders. This mass upending of lives is set to cause internal and external conflicts that the Pentagon, among others, has warned will escalate into violence.

The response to this trend on the right has led to what academics Joe Turner and Dan Bailey call ecobordering, where restrictions on immigration are seen as vital to protect the nativist stewardship of nature and where the ills of environmental destruction are laid upon those from developing countries, ignoring the far larger consumptive habits of wealthy nations. In an analysis of 22 far-right parties in Europe, the academics found this thinking is rife among rightwing parties and portrays effects as causes and further normalizes racist border practices and colonial amnesia within Europe.

Turner, an expert in politics and migration at the University of York, said the link between climate and migration is an easy logic for politicians such as Johnson as it plays into longstanding tropes on the right that overpopulation in poorer countries is a leading cause of environmental harm. More broadly, it is an attempt by the right to seize the initiative on environmental issues that have for so long been the preserve of center-left parties and conservationists.

The far right in Europe has an anti-immigration platform, thats their bread and butter, so you can see it as an electoral tactic to start talking about green politics, Turner said, adding that migrants are being blamed in two ways first, for moving to countries with higher emissions and then adding to those emissions, as rightwing figures in Arizona have claimed; and secondly for supposedly bringing destructive, polluting habits with them from their countries of origin.

A mixture of this Malthusian and ethno-nationalist thinking is being distilled into political campaigning, as in a political pamphlet described in Turner and Baileys research paper from SVP, the largest party in Switzerlands federal assembly, which shows a city crowded by people and cars belching out pollution, with a tagline that translates to stop massive immigration. A separate campaign ad by SVP claims that 1 million migrants will result in thousands of miles of new roads and that anyone who wants to protect the environment in Switzerland must fight against mass immigration.

The far right depict migrants as being essentially poor custodians of their own lands and then treating European nature badly as well, Turner said. So you get these headlines around asylum seekers eating swans, all these ridiculous scaremongering tactics. But they play into this idea that by stopping immigrants coming here, you are actually supporting a green project.

Experts are clear that the main instigators of the climate crisis are wealthy people in wealthy countries. The richest 1% of the worlds population were responsible for the emission of more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorer half of the world from 1990 to 2015, research has found, with people in the US causing the highest level of per capita emissions in the world. Adding new arrivals to high-emitting countries doesnt radically ramp up these emissions at the same rate: a study by Utah State University found that immigrants are typically using less energy, driving less, and generating less waste than native-born Americans.

Still, the idea of personal sacrifice is hard for many to swallow. While there is strengthening acceptance of climate science among the public, and a restlessness that governments have done so little to constrain global heating, support for climate polices plummets when it comes to measures that involve the taxing of gasoline or other impositions. According to a research paper co-authored by Fieschi, this has led to a situation where detractors are taking up the language of freedom fighters.

We are seeing the growth of accusations of climate hysteria as a way for elites to exploit ordinary people, Fieschi said. The solutions that are talked about involve spending more money on deserving Americans and deserving Germans and so on, and less on refugees. Its yes, we will need to protect people, but lets protect our people.

This backlash is visible in protest movements such as the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) in France, which became the longest-running protest movement in the country since the second world war by railing against, among other things, a carbon tax placed on fuel. Online, favored targets such as Greta Thunberg or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been shown in memes as Nazis or devils intent on impoverishing western civilization through their supposedly radical ideas to combat climate change. Fieschi said the rights interaction with climate is far more than just about borders it is animating fears that personal freedoms are under attack from a cosseted, liberal elite.

You see these quite obviously populist arguments in the US and Europe that a corrupt elite, the media and government have no idea what ordinary peoples lives are like as they impose these stringent climate policies, said Fieschi, whose research has analyzed the climate conversation on the right taking place on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms.

This sort of online chatter has escalated since the Covid-19 pandemic started, Fieschi said, and is being fed along a line of influence that begins with small, conspiratorial rightwing groups spreading messages that are then picked up by what she calls middle of the tail figures with thousands of followers, and then in turn disseminated by large influencers and into mainstream center-right politics.

There are these conspiratorial accusations that Covid is a dry run for restrictions that governments want to impose with the climate emergency, that we need to fight for our freedoms on wearing masks and on all these climate rules, Fieschi said. There is a yearning for a pre-Covid life and a feeling climate policies will just cause more suffering.

Whats worrying, Fieschi continued, is that more reasonable parts of the right, mainstream conservatives and Republicans, are being drawn to this. They will say they dont deny climate change but then tap into these ideas. She said center-right French politicians have started disparaging climate activists as miserabilists, while Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union who sought to succeed Angela Merkel, has said Germany should focus on its own industry and people in the face of cascading global crises.

The interplay between environmentalism and racism has some of its deepest roots in the US, where some of the conservation movements totemic figures of the past embraced views widely regarded as abhorrent today. Wilderness was something viewed in the 19th century as bound in rugged, and exclusively white, masculinity, and manifest destiny demanded the expansion of a secure frontier.

John Muir, known as the father of national parks in the US, described native Americans as dirty and said they seemed to have no right place in the landscape. Madison Grant, a leading figure in the protection of the American bison and the establishment of Glacier national park, was an avowed eugenicist who argued for inferior races to be placed into ghettoes and successfully lobbied for Ota Benga, a Congolese man, to be put on display alongside apes at the Bronx Zoo. This focus on racial hierarchies would come to be adopted into the ideology of the Nazis themselves avowed conservationists.

There has been something of a reckoning of this troubling past in recent years a bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt on horseback flanked by a native American man and an African man is to be removed from the front of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and at least one conservation group named after the slaveholder and anti-abolitionist John James Audubon is changing its name. But elsewhere, themes of harmful overpopulation have been picked up by a resurgent right from a liberal environmental movement that now largely demurs from the topic.

Republicans, aware that many of their own younger voters are turned off by the relentless climate denial as they see their futures wreathed in wildfire smoke and flood water, have sensed an opportunity. The right is reclaiming that older Malthusian population rhetoric and is using that as a cudgel in green terms rather than unpopular racist terms, said Blair Taylor, program director at the Institute for Social Ecology, an educational and research body.

Its weird that this has become a popular theme in the US west because the west is sparsely populated and that hasnt slowed environmental destruction, he added. But this is about speaking to nativist fears, it isnt about doing anything to solve the problem.

The spearhead for modern nativism in the US is, of course, Donald Trump who has, along with an often dismissive stance towards climate science itself, sought to portray migrants from Mexico and Central America as criminals and animals while vowing to restore clean air and water to deserving American citizens. If there is to be another iteration of a Trump presidency, or a successful campaign by one of his acolytes, the scientific denial may be dialed down somewhat while retaining the reflex nativism.

The Republican lawsuit in Arizona may be a prelude to an ecological reframing of Trumps fetish for border walls should the former president run again for office in 2024, with migrants again the target. We will see weird theories that will spread blame in all the wrong directions, Taylor said. More walls, more borders, more exclusion thats most likely the way we are heading.

A recasting of environmentalism in this way has already branched out in different forms throughout the US right, spanning gun-toting preppers who view nature as a bastion to be defended from interlopers a back to the land ideology where you are an earner and provider, not a not soft-handed soy boy, as Taylor describes it to the vaguely mystic wellness practitioners who have risen to prominence by spreading false claims over the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines.

The latter group, Taylor said, includes those who have a fascination with organic farming, Viking culture, extreme conspiracy theories such as the QAnon fantasy and a rejection of science and reason in favour of discovering an authentic self. These disparate facets are all embodied, he said, in Jake Angeli, the so-called QAnon shaman who was among the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January. Angeli, who became famous for wearing horns and a bearskin headdress during the violent insurrection, was sentenced to 41 months in prison over his role in the riot. He gained media attention for refusing to eat the food served in jail because it was not organic.

Angeli, who previously attended a climate march to promote his conspiracy-laden YouTube channel and said he is in favor of cleansed ecosystems, has been described as an eco-fascist, a term that has also been applied to Patrick Crusius, the Dallas man accused of killing 23 people in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019.

In a document published online shortly before the shooting, Crusius wrote: The environment is getting worse by the year So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable. The shooting came just a few months after the terrorist massacre of 49 people in two mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand, with the perpetrator describing himself as an eco-fascist unhappy about the birthrate of immigrants.

Such extreme, violent acts erupting from rightwing eco-populist beliefs are still rare but the alt-right has been adept at taking concerns and making them mainstream, said Taylor. It has fostered the idea that nature is a place of savage survival that brings us back to original society, that nature itself is fascist because there is no equality in nature. Thats what they believe.

Advocates for those fleeing climate-induced disasters hope there will be a shift in the other direction, with some advocating for a new international refugee framework. The UN convention on refugees does not recognize climate change, and its effects, as a reason for countries to provide shelter to refugees. An escalation in forced displacement from drought, floods and other calamities will put further onus on the need for reform. But opening up the convention for a revamp could see it wound back as much as it could be expanded, given the growing ascendancy of populism and authoritarianism in many countries.

The big players arent invested in changing any of the definitions around refugees in fact the US and UK are making it even more difficult to claim asylum, said Turner. I think what youre going to see is internally displaced people increasing and the burden, as it already is, falling on neighbors in the global south.

Ultimately, the extent of the suffering caused by global heating, and the increasingly severe responses required to deal with that, will help determine the reactionary response. While greater numbers of people will call for climate action, any restrictions imposed by governments will provide a sense of vindication to rightwingers warning of overreaching elites.

My sense is that we wont do enough to avoid others bearing the brunt of this, Fieschi said. Solidarity has its limits, after all. Sure, you want good things for the children of the world. But ultimately you will put your children first.

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Climate denial is waning on the right. Whats replacing it might be just as scary - The Guardian

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia As the plaintiffs in the landmark federal lawsuit against two dozen neo-Nazis and other white supremacists who organized the Unite the Right rally called their final witnesses, they zeroed in on the alleged calls for violence in the run-up to the event, presenting organizers own message threads as evidence.

Plaintiffs attorney Karen Dunn on Tuesday called to the stand Jason Kessler, a white nationalist, member of the Proud Boys, and one of the primary Unite the Right organizers. The attorney spent hours Tuesday confirming and walking Kessler through his extensive communications with other white nationalists and neo-Nazis in the months, weeks, and days leading up to Aug. 11 and 12, 2017. Those communications over social messaging platforms including Facebook and Discord, as well as by phone and text message made clear that Kessler was looking to draw like-minded people from across the US to Charlottesville. In one post, he promised it would be the biggest Alt-Right event of the year.

He also referred to the rally in fighting terms, saying it would go down in history as the Battle of Charlottesville. Many of his messages discussed violence and provoking antiracist counterprotesters as a means to not only foment a race war, but also get media attention.

We need a new way to tip off antifa when we want them to show up somewhere, read one message that Kessler wrote to other white nationalists. We definitely want to play these people into our hands Saturday in Charlottesville.

In that same online discussion, Kessler spoke about the need to hide weapons while in public and his expectation that at least some attendees would be packing firearms.

Can you guys conceal carry? I dont want to scare antifa off from throwing the first punch. Big scary guns...will keep Antifa away. I want them to start something, Kessler wrote. Lots of armed military vets in attendance so we arent going to be lacking for firepower.

The planning of violence is key to the case of nine plaintiffs, who are suing for damages to compensate for the injuries they sustained in August 2017 as well as to punish the rally organizers. Brought on the plaintiffs behalf by the civil rights nonprofit Integrity First for America, the lawsuit is using the 150-year-old Ku Klux Klan Act to try to hold some or all of 24 of the most notorious white nationalist figures and organizations in the US accountable for alleged racially motivated violence.

Over the course of three weeks, the plaintiffs have laid out their case that the rally planning amounted to a conspiracy; they have testified about the physical and psychological injuries they experienced and still struggle with; and they have used a mountain of digital evidence to show the extent to which the group of white supremacists went to allegedly get the fight they were after.

The jury is expected to hear from defense witnesses as early as Tuesday. So far, defense statements at trial have ranged from bizarre rants to hate speech. Unable to afford lawyers, some of the white supremacists are representing themselves, using their time in court to broadcast their extremist ideologies as well as grievances with their fellow defendants.

Neo-Nazi podcaster Christopher Cantwell, who is defending himself in the trial, also took the stand Monday. The plaintiffs played episodes of his podcast that aired before Unite the Right, including one in which he interviewed Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer. In the interview, Auernheimer calls for a race war and praises neo-Nazi mass murderer Dylann Roof.

I fucking like you Youre awesome," Cantwell tells Weev after listening to him rant.

Social media posts by Cantwell in which he used racist and violent language were also shown to the jury. One read, America wont be free until the last kike is strangled with the entrails of the last Democrat.

The plaintiffs also played a clip from a Vice News interview in 2017, in which Cantwell shows off the arsenal of firearms he had brought to Unite the Right.

In the process of presenting their case, the plaintiffs have also indirectly exposed how the ties among the white nationalists have frayed since the lawsuit was filed against them. During cross-examinations when some of the pro se defendants those who are representing themselves have interrogated their codefendants, things have turned heated.

In one testy exchange Monday, white nationalist Richard Spencer asked Kessler on the stand about Kesslers public criticism of him.

So when did you determine that I was a sociopathic narcissist?" Spencer asked Kessler, a term the latter had used in a 2019 tweet.

You were just despicable to everyone you ever came in contact with... You were like a robot, like a serial killer, Kessler answered.

Kessler, his voice raised at Spencer, continued, saying that Spencer had accused him of being a Jew because I wouldnt Sieg Heil with you, referring to the Nazi salute.

Spencer, glancing nervously at the jury and then down at his notes, responded before ending his questioning a moment later: Thats that's enough, Jason.

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I Want Them To Start Something: White Supremacists Allegedly Strategized How To Provoke Counterprotesters Ahead Of The Unite The Right Rally -...

If I was planning a coup detat and the overthrow of the government of the United States of America, Id not really go out of my way to blab about what I knew, before or after the event.

If what they say is true about Steve Bannon, a man best thought of as Donald Trumps Svengali, then I too wouldnt be cooperating that much with the authorities about what I did or did not know about the protests (to put things euphemistically) at the Capitol on 6 January.

Whether it was a pro-Trump rally where things got a bit out of hand or an attempt to seize control of the levers of government and to frustrate the ratification of a democratic election is what is in question at the the various Congressional inquiries now underway. What was Bannon doing in Washington on 6 January? And what did Bannon mean when he predicted, a day before, that all hell would be let loose? We all have our views.

From Bannons point of view, stonewalling must be the best option. Saying as little as possible is a constitutional right, arguably, and no one can actually force him to tell anyone anything. He can use his high-profile platform to argue, if hes minded to engage, that the whole process is illegitimate, being conducted by an unlawfully elected fake assembly, and motivated by a desire to protect a Democrat president elected through fraudulent means. Donald Trump, in this version of reality, is still the president of the United States, and Bannon and his allies only recognise his authority.

Therefore, Bannon might point out, hes under no obligation to hand anything over or give up any information to a body, the US Congress, that is operating under false pretences and has itself usurped the true democratic government of the US the Trump administration. Indeed, silence would add to his aura of power and mystery. It gives him leverage, too what will the establishment offer in return for his information?

The worst and also the best thing that could happen to Bannon is that Congress finds him guilty of contempt, sends him to jail for a year and slaps a $100,000 fine on him. The whole Bannon shtick, absurdly, is that hes the little guy being bullied by a fraudulent, selfish, crooked elite looking, as ever, after their own interests, and terrified of the people and the peoples continuing president, Donald J Trump.

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Nothing suits Bannon more than to be seen as the victim, even if his travails are entirely self-inflicted. Nothing would be more satisfying than a one-year spell in prison, where, like some notable figures from the past, he would spend his time writing his memoirs and setting out his political philosophy and patriotic mission.

Congress presently seems set on making Steve Bannon into a sort of conservative Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner banged up for his beliefs, victimised for his defiance of an illegitimate regime. No doubt he will do well out of it.

You wonder, though, what might happen if the Congress ever tried to come after Trump personally theyve already tried to get their hands on personal records and Trump tells them to get lost and they send him to prison too. Trump and Bannon might share a cell, assuming the Justice Department can locate a cell big enough for these two outsize egos. It would be an unusual place to launch the Republicans 2024 presidential bid.

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Nothing would suit Steve Bannon more than to be an alt-right martyr in prison - The Independent

Summary

Bannon surrenders on contempt charges. Biden signs $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. Rittenhouse jury deliberations to begin tomorrow. Closing arguments in Kyle Rittenhouse trial. Judge dismisses underage weapons charge. Judge says jurors can consider provocation and lesser charges. Rittenhouse prosecutor say you lose the right to self-defense when you brought the gun. Defense attorney claims every person who was shot was attacking Kyle. Former Trump White House Chief of Staff defying subpoena.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:00:00]

ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Thanks for watching THE BEAT with Ari Melber. THE REIDOUT with Joy Reid is up next. Hi, Joy.

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: How are you doing, Ari? Thank you very much. Have a great evening.

All right, good evening, everyone. We have a lot to get to on this very busy Monday. Former Trump Adviser Steve Bannon surrendered to FBI agents this morning and later appeared in court to face criminal contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena.

And this afternoon President Biden celebrated a major achievement at the White House surrounded by a group of bipartisan lawmakers. He signed into law a massive infrastructure bill that will invest billions of dollars into roads, and ports, broadband internet, clean water and a lot more. And we`re going to get to both of those developments.

But we begin THE REIDOUT tonight with the closing arguments in the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Just minutes ago, jurors were handed the case and the fate of Kyle Rittenhouse`s future now rests in their hands. Earlier today, Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger delivered the dramatic closing arguments for the prosecution. He argued that Rittenhouse was in a state of liven carrying a gun he shouldn`t have and pretending to guard an empty business he had no connection to and even lied about being an EMT. He argued that Rittenhouse was no hero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS BINGER, KENOSHA COUNTY ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Now you`ve heard the everyday and it`s time to search for the truth. So, consider, for example, whether or not it`s heroic or honorable to provoke and shoot unarmed people. Consider it, whether it makes someone a hero when they lie about being an EMT.

In this entire sequence of events from the shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday, August 23rd, 2020 all the way after that, everything this community went through, the only person who shot and killed anyone was the defendant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: After shooting Joseph Rosenbaum several times, Rittenhouse took off running as the crowd grappled with the prospect of an active shooter, Rittenhouse lied to the crowd and told them that Mr. Rosenbaum had pulled a gun.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BINGER: The defendant flees, callously disregarding the body of the man that he just shot and killed. And as he`s running off, he`s lying to the crowd about what just happened. This is exhibit number 12.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Earlier in the day, the prosecution asked the judge to let the jury consider lesser charges if they move to acquit on the original counts. The judge agreed. Rittenhouse`s attorney unleashed a viscous rebuttal calling the prosecution`s case garbage and a rush to judgment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK RICHARDS, RITTENHOUSE ATTORNEY: This is a political case.

The District Attorney`s Office is marching forward with this case because they need somebody to be responsible. They need somebody to put and say we did it, he`s the person who brought terror to Kenosha. Kyle Rittenhouse is not that individual. The rioters, the demonstrators who turned into rioters, those are the individuals who bring us forth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: This has been one of the strangest trials in recent history, just to be honest, with Bruce Schroeder`s odd behavior taking center stage. Just moment before the jury, was set to hear the closing arguments, he dismissed a count of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18, a misdemeanor that had appear to be among the likeliest of a charges to net a conviction for prosecutors. And here is one of the instructions that he gave jurors on the question of self-defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE BRUCE SCHROEDER, KENOSHA COUNTY, WISCONSIN: When you address the charged crime, if in your discussions you conclude that the elements are present and the defendant was not acting lawfully in self-defense, then you need not go further. You can return your verdict of guilt based upon that conclusion. If in your discussions as to any individual count of those with multiple possible verdicts in your initial discussion if you decide that the defendant acted lawfully in self-defense, you`re done and you can return to that guilty verdict without considering the lesser offenses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Now, through this trial, the judge has issued rulings that seemed to favor the defense. He yelled at the prosecutor and forbade the state from referring to the people killed by Kyle Rittenhouse as victims, ruling the terms is too, quote, loaded. He also made a joke about Asian food and his phone rang during a trial playing a (INAUDIBLE) that`s been heard a Trump rallies because that is just the kind of trial that this has been.

[19:05:00]

And with this trial now nearing its end, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said that 500 National Guard members will be prepared for duty in Kenosha if local law enforcement requests them.

Joining me now, Paul Butler, former Federal Prosecutor and Georgetown Law Professor, and Katie Phang, Trial Attorney and MSNBC Legal Contributor.

And I just have to ask you, Paul, because I watched a lot of trials going back to the O.J. trial when I was just watching it as an interested observer, not a journalist, I`ve never seen anything like this, especially the instructions to the jury that became this whole other sort of mini-trial without the jurors present. Can you please try to explain to us what happened there had and what this judge was doing and whether it was normal?

PAUL BUTLER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I`m glad you didn`t ask me to explain the judge`s instructions because I could not do that. I`ve tried a bunch of cases as a prosecutor. I`ve taught criminal law school for years. I didn`t understand half of what the judge was saying.

REID: I didn`t either. Okay, good. At least it wasn`t me. I thought maybe I just didn`t go to law school to understand it.

Katie, could you make any better sense of it? Because -- so the thing is that I don`t understand. Having -- you know, I`ve been in a grand jury. Normally, lesser includeds are the way prosecutors kind of guarantee conviction, because if they can`t get you on the top charge, there are all these lesser included things that they could actually -- the jury could then consider, say, maybe I don`t think you murder the person but I think you did reckless endangerment or manslaughter. He essentially said wipe it all out if you think he acted in self-defense in the charge. Did that strike you as strange?

KATIE PHANG, MSNBC LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: It did. And, you know, what we`ve noticed is that, he doesn`t like to read stuff and he really should because there is a reason why the jury instructions have been printed out for everyone to be able to see. The way that he has these random rambling dissertations from the bench trying to explain key concepts of law is really where this trial has gone totally awry.

But with regards to the lesser included, you can`t just make the summary statement from the bench that if you find it it was self-defense and it completely eradicates all the lesser includeds and the fact he`s allowed lesser included should be given to the jury. I think that there`s been inconsistent behavior, conduct and rulings from the bench, even recently we just saw some stuff that was going during closing arguments.

But I think that the jury is sufficiently confused and that`s what gets scary when you`re a prosecutor. If you got a jury that`s confused, sometimes the easy out is to just let it go. And that is the real fear that the prosecution has at this time.

REID: Absolutely. And, Paul, especially when you`re talking about a teenager who -- he`s going -- there`s 18 jurors right now in the pool. It will go to 12. Just the math tells you this could be an all-white jury. There is only one black person in the pool. So, he might get an all-white jury of people to whom, to them, he looks like their son, right? And so now the question is what do you believe is more logical?

This was -- let me play a little bit of what the prosecutor said. This is Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, and he talked about who provoked the initial reaction with Joseph Rosenbaum. This is cut one. Listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BINGER: They know you can`t claim self-defense against an unarmed man like this. You lose the right to self-defense when you`re the one who brought the gun, when you`re the one creating the danger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: And then he shows all this video that I thought was actually very powerful in showing that Rittenhouse shoots Mr. Rosenbaum and then he runs and then the crowd starts pursuing him thinking he`s an active shooter. And so there are people there who have their own guns because they`re thinking I`m going to approach this danger. He`s the active shooter. People ask him, did you shoot someone? Did you shoot someone? And then he reacts to that with the second two people.

Think about the mindset this person has just killed one person. And then when two other people approach him, he shoots one of their arm almost off and he shoots the third and kills him.

And so what the prosecutor I thought pretty effectively argued is that he`s the only one who is dangerous in this situation. The other people are not attacking him. He`s the danger. Did that strike you as a strong argument?

BUTLER: It did. You know, the judge, as we noted, has been extremely tough on the prosecution but he finally cut them a break with this provocation instruction. If the jury finds that Rittenhouse was the initial aggressor, then he can`t claim self-defense. So, in closing, the prosecutor spent a lot of time arguing that it was Rittenhouse who started the fight and that it was really his victims who had the right to self-defense, not the defendant.

So, the jury will decide based on the witness testimony and video. It`s all open to interpretation. One witness said that this first victim, Rosenbaum, threatened to kill Rittenhouse but the prosecutor said today that never happened.

Another government witness said that Rosenbaum lunged for the gun but the prosecution witnesses said -- another prosecution witness said that Rosenbaum was a babbling idiot who was harmless.

[19:10:08]

So, during jury deliberations, the jury will have to decide who it believes.

But, Joy, I agree with what you said in the beginning, that this was a good day for the prosecution. If it had tried the whole case as strongly as it delivered its closing, then Mr. Rittenhouse would soon be on his way to state prison.

REID: You know, that reminds me of, Paul, you know what I`m saying, the Zimmerman trial was like that. The whole time I think where do the prosecutors go to school? And then in the end, they delivered these wonderful closings but they had already done so poorly going in. And, anyway, we`ll see how, if it turns out differently.

Katie, let me let you talk about what the defense was doing. Because they seem to be trying this as a political case trying to appeal to any sort of Fox News viewers on the jury, let`s just be blunt, who might think when the looting starts, the shooting starts is a good thing to say, you know what I mean? And if they characterized the people who were shot as the bad guys and you think this guy is a hero like the people at that other network do, that`s your jurors.

So, let`s play a little bit -- this is Mark Richards, is the name of the attorney, and this is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK RICHARDS, RITTENHOUSE ATTORNEY: If they want to be the heroes and they want to beat somebody and do what they`re going to do to them, they better be right, and they weren`t. Kyle Rittenhouse shot Mr. Rosenbaum because he was attacking Kyle. Every person who was shot was attacking Kyle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Okay. I`m going to ask what you make of that argument, Katie.

PHANG: Okay. Let`s be clear. You don`t have to have a judgment about whether or not the protests were good or bad. What they did on the defense is they basically wanted to inflame the jury to think that it was totally fine for Kyle Rittenhouse to come in on his white horse, this knight on the white horse to save that community of Kenosha, which he had no business being there in the first place, right?

So, putting aside whether or not you want to have a qualitative value judgment about what was going on in terms of those protests, Kyle Rittenhouse`s behavior had to be reasonable that evening in question. And he was not physically harmed. You have two dead people, multiple injured others. And the reality is, it was hands, feet, a skateboard. Hands, feet and a skateboard versus an AR-15, that`s what that was.

The thing that we heard in the rebuttal close I think that really made sense and that would counter what the defense was attempting to do today was the fact that they called Rittenhouse a chaos tourist. Kind of reminds you a little bit about the January 6th insurrection, right? This idea that you had people that showed up armed to do harm, and that is exactly what Kyle Rittenhouse did as a chaos tourist. He showed up, he didn`t mean to improve the community, and you know what, if the jury listens to the law and applies the facts and the evidence to the law, then they should be able to come back with at least one conviction. Because, remember, each victim is separate count. It`s not all of the victims under one count. And so the prosecution actually has more than one bite of the apple to be able to convict Kyle Rittenhouse.

REID: Yes. And last word to you on this, Paul, because here is the sort of elephant in the room. You know, all of the people involved in this are white, you know, and the thing I noticed was not said and I saw it on the paper but never said out loud by the prosecutor was Black Lives Matter was involved. He left that characterization aside.

And so in this case, I hate to say it, if the victims were black, I would be 100 percent sure how this case would ended, I would be, at least in my own mind. But in this case, it`s complicated a little bit because the people who he shot were members of the community who also somebody could maybe relate to. Do you think that that ends up mattering because race is off the table here in terms of this jury?

BUTLER: So, this was a protest about Black Lives Matter situation in which African-American person was killed by a white officer or was shot by a white officer. The through line between the Rittenhouse case and the Georgia case of Ahmaud Arbery`s killers is guns. How many Americans are walking around strapped down with firearms trying to act like cops, paying more attention to black people, trying to guard people`s property or police protests march. And these people knowingly put themselves in harm`s way and when they do that, they then say they feel threatened and use their guns to kill.

And the concern, Joy, is that the defendants are allowed to get away with this we should expect to see more cases of armed vigilantism just like this.

REID: And as you, this sort of -- yes, this is the society they`re trying to create, this sort of violent tourism, wherever you want to go and you be the police, that is what everyone should fear. Paul Butler, Katie Phang, thank you all both very much.

[19:15:01]

Up next on THE REIDOUT, Steve Bannon surrenders to face charges of contempt of Congress as Trump`s inner circle in just closer to accountability for January 6th.

Plus, President Biden signs the government`s massive investment in infrastructure but Republicans want to punish -- they want to punish the handful of their party members who supported it, you know, punishing for getting bridges for their own community.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins me on this historic day for the Biden administration.

And tonight`s absolute worst, they`re actually trying to destroy democracy. Now, one of Trump`s tough guy wants the government to dictate how you worship.

THE REIDOUT continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REID: The wheels of justice may turn slowly but they are turning when it comes to the select committee investigation of January 6th. Steve Bannon surrendered the federal authorities this morning after being criminally indicted on Friday on charges of contempt of Congress. And no surprise, he gave us a self-aggrandizing press conference portraying himself as a MAGA martyr while defiantly pointing the finger at everyone but himself.

[19:20:05]

A year in prison might go a long way toward deflating that ego and also and also getting him some different-colored shirts to layer.

Of course, Bannon isn`t the only Trump ally at risk of criminal charges for defying Congress. Trump`s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows appears to be following in his footsteps, refusing to comply with a subpoena from the select committee. And, like Bannon, he neglected to even show up for his scheduled deposition last Friday.

And now Congressman Adam Schiff is making it clear that Meadows is next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): I`m confident we will move very quickly with respect to Mr. Meadows also. But we want to make sure that we have the strongest possible case to present to the Justice Department and for the Justice Department to present to a grand jury.

When, ultimately, witnesses decide, as Meadows has, that they`re not even going to bother showing up, that they have that much contempt for the law, then it pretty much forces our hand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Now, the almost two dozen other Trump allies under scrutiny by the committee have a choice to make. They can either comply with their subpoenas or risk the same fate as Mr. I Made Breitbart the Home of White Nationalism, AKA, the alt-right.

This comes as outgoing Republican Congressman Anthony Gonzalez sounds the alarm that January 6 was just a dry run for an actual coup in 2024.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ANTHONY GONZALEZ (R-OH): It looks to me -- and I think any objective observer would come to this conclusion -- that he has evaluated what went wrong on January 6. Why is it that he wasn`t able to steal the election? Who stood in his way?

Every single American institution is just run by people. And you need the right people to make the right decision in the most difficult times. He`s going systematically through the country and trying to remove those people and install people who are going to do exactly what he wants them to do, who believe the big lie, who will go along with anything he says.

Do the institutions hold again? Do they hold with a different set of people in place? I hope so. But you can`t guarantee it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: The truth is, the big lie is still sweeping the GOP. In fact, more Republicans now believe that nonsense theory that Trump will be magically reinstated by the end of this year; 28 percent of Republicans believe that now, up from just, well, an equally bad 22 percent last month.

It`s a reminder of why the work of the January 6 committee is so important.

Joining me now, Kurt Bardella, adviser to the DNC and DCCC And former spokesman for the House Oversight Committee, and Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser and MSNBC political contributor.

And, Kurt, you worked on that Oversight Committee.

You know, it`s fairly clear, there are already the soft rumblings of threats, that, if Kevin McCarthy is the next speaker, they will disband this committee. I think anyone should understand that.

But dream with me, if you will. What would they theoretically do? Wouldn`t -- isn`t it clear that what Republicans would do is suddenly believe in subpoenas and start making up things to investigate about Democrats should they get control of the House?

KURT BARDELLA, DCCC ADVISER: Joy, if Republicans regain control of the House, they will continue what they started during the Barack Obama years and issue a tsunami of subpoenas, a tsunami of hearings, an avalanche of depositions, invented accusations, invented controversies, just like they did to Barack Obama`s entire presidency.

Every Cabinet secretary, every relative, every single person that has any association to this current administration will come under target. We have seen that anyone involved in Trump world will not hesitate to abuse their power, use their office, use their leverage, use their authority to do whatever they want to Trump`s enemies, to perceive enemies.

They made enemies list when they were in the administration. They will advance that. They will do everything that they can to target and go after every single person that they perceive to be a threat to them. And, really, what that means, a threat to them are people willing to stand up for democracy, people willing to defend democracy, defend checks and balances, respect our institutions, try to hold up the pillars that keep our society going.

Steve Bannon has said all along that his intention is to act as a Leninist and to tear down and destroy the structures of our institutions and establishment. He announced that in 2017. What we are seeing now happen with Donald Trump, with the Republican Party, with Steve Bannon`s defiance is a deliberate effort to make good on that threat that he made.

And that`s what the Republican Party is all about right now. And that is why it is crucial that we hang on to the majorities in Congress, because, if we lose them, if we give these Republicans an inch, if we give them a return to power, they will never let it go ever again.

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Alex Jones guilty by default in Sandy Hook defamation lawsuit | News | denvergazette.com

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Conspiracy theorist and alt-right talk show host Alex Jones was found guilty of defamation by default in the latest lawsuit filed by Sandy Hook families.

A judge in Connecticut ruled that because Jones was unwilling to turn over the requested records to the courts, he was found guilty by default, according to the New York Times. These records would have included business and financial documents for his company, InfoWars, among other things.

This ruling is a follow-up to previous rulings in Texas that granted the families of Sandy Hook relief after the talk show host described the 2012 shooting as a "false flag" operation.

While Jones claims he no longer believes Sandy Hook is a false flag, the lawsuit alleges his change of opinion is irrelevant because the damage of the accusations was already done.

This story is still developing.

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