You can give me a yes or no on this, would that woman who decided to have an abortion
which would be considering an illegal abortion, be charged with murder?
>> Okay, let's go back to the basic question there, is that a human being,
is that a little boy or girl?
If it is it deserves equal protection of the law.
>> So you're saying, yes?
>> Yes, I am.
>> So that is Doug Mastriano.
Of course, he is the Republican nominee for the governor in Pennsylvania
right now, during an election, that abortion incredibly important topic.
And he's being asked in previous years about whether it should be
considered murder?
And it's fairly clear what he thinks right there.
At that point, he had all ready sponsored a bill that would have banned abortion as
early as six weeks.
So he was a little bit early on the Republican side for
setting that arbitrary insane six week timeline.
And he was asked about 10 weeks there which would all ready be a massive
reduction from what was the status quo six months ago in the US.
And yeah, he seems pretty okay with the idea.
Now, asked to comment initially on this becoming a topic once again,
he declined, but at some point,
he did seem to want to backtrack a little bit, take a look at this.
>> The matter of life in Pennsylvania is exactly what the Supreme Court said.
It's up to the people of Pennsylvania, and the people's representatives this is on
the first page of the decision, the dom's decision from June,
the people decide in Pennsylvania what that looks like.
So if my views are kind of irrelevant because I cannot rule by fiat or
by edict or
executive order on on the issue of life, it's up to the people of Pennsylvania.
So, Pennsylvanians want exceptions, if they wanna limit the number of weeks,
it's gonna have to come to your legislative body and then to my desk.
That is a hell of a thing.
So he is in the scandal right now because he implied a couple of years ago that he
believes that a woman who has an abortion should be considered a murderer in a state
that has capital punishment, which is exciting.
And his defense is well, I mean, it's not like I can do it unilaterally.
I'm not gonna say if I still support it, but
like it's not like I can sign it myself.
So, coming out of this conversation, do you think he still supports it or not?
If he didn't,
he could get his way out of this scandal by just saying that he doesn't.
Now, it's clear that he still considers it to be murder.
And while he's largely right as governor, he can't just sign a piece of paper and
immediately start executing women who have abortions.
Do you want to roll the dice on the continued existence of your rights with
a guy who has stated in the past that he doesn't believe that their rights.
And that millions and millions of women are murderers,
is that what you want, Emma, what do you think?
It's good timing for this with the election just a couple of months away.
Well, I mean, this is I think why maybe my perception of some of
the Democrats pied piper strategies deviates from maybe yours and
I know it did from the Jenk's last time I was on this show.
It is because when you have these extremists that are the general election
candidates, there is no shortage of skeletons in their closet.
And they really do say what they mean when they go into friendly environments.
And I know actually this interviewer was fairly combative with Mastriano
when you listen to a fuller context of it as well, which is good to hear.
But, they'll show their ass basically, they'll make it clear who they are.
And so, I do think that there is some value in that,
particularly when abortion is going to be what is on the ballot here.
I don't even know if Republicans fully understood how galvanized Democratic
voters would be in a year that is typically not a good one for
Democrats when you have a Democratic president.
And the midterms are coming up two years into that presidency,
especially when Biden's approval rating is nothing to write home about.
So, the fact that he has these comments, there is some value there, and
the polling seems to bear that out.
And some of the other things he said in that interview are just crazy too, right,
I consider the person no matter what country they're from,
if they're here, I consider the fetus a person.
I'm old enough to remember when Republicans were fearmongering constantly
about anchor babies and migrants coming over just to give birth here, so
they could stay in this country as if that was something nefarious in and of itself.
But, what this really is, is he wants to be able to control women, and
when you say that you're gonna leave it up to the voters or
legislative of Texas is gonna come to me.
What that means is that you don't see abortion as a fundamental right,
rights do not get chipped away at the edges, rights do not have caveats.
And rape and incest exemptions, it takes a really long time to prove rape,
by the way, kind of expires, the time for an abortion expires when that's the case.
Those are just fig leaves for
their extremism because they don't care about solving rapes,
they don't care about honestly the incest and the babies that come from that.
Many Republicans still think that those girls and women should carry those
children, they just use that as a way to deflect from their barbarity.
So don't even engage with an incest exemptions in abortion debates,
because it's all in bad faith to cover up how brutal they actually are.
>> Yeah, that is a great point.
Of course, Greg Abbott promised that you didn't have to worry about rape
because he was going to stop all of the rape and catch all the rapists and
still it hasn't happened yet.
Maybe, later tonight., I don't know.
Maybe there will be no more rape in Texas.
Sources on the ground say, still a big problem, turned out,
he didn't give a damn about it.
Because when he's being questioned for
his barbaric view on abortion, he wants to double down and make sure that you
know that he's also a barbarian when it comes to the topic of rape as well.
Because he doesn't care about women's rights when it comes to abortion, and
he really doesn't care about what happens with rape either.
Mastriano we'll see in terms of the strategy.
In this case right now, Josh Shapiro is leading by more than 10 points,
which that's not nothing that seems like a pretty good lead.
God only knows, I don't know.
I keep hearing there's this red wave, I'm granted I hear that on Trump's true
social account, but I do hear about that and so I'm a little bit worried anyway.
It's important that people know what position these these absolute monsters
have because they're working as hard as they can.
Many of these candidates to make sure that you don't find out about it,
stripping their prior there prior, like happy placement of how pro life they were.
That used to be all over their websites all of a sudden as soon as they win
the primaries is gone.
It's weird.
>> Yeah, Blake Masters said that.
And just a quick aside, John, or just I wanted to clarify it,
there's no real evidence, it seems like in this Mastriano case that he was pied
piper and it's just candidates like him and on the Senate and House side.
>> Sure.
>> But just to add to what you were saying here about Mastriano,
and the fact that Republicans are hiding their
true position when it gets to the general election.
They did this in the way that they stripped abortion rights in
the first place.
Ex republican right wing extremists understand that their agenda is deeply
unpopular with the majority of Americans.
These theocrats understand that, so they lie to you up until the exact point when
they can strike and take that right away.
They did it with the Supreme Court justices that they appointed, Kavanaugh,
Gorsuch, Coney Barrett, Roe is settled law, too bad.
They decide against it as soon as they have the opportunity when
they're in power.
And they'll do the same thing once they get in power,
whether it's the gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania or it's the Senate races or
the House races on the federal level as well.
>> I agree, 100%.
Yeah, I would love for
us to live in a country where people were excited to tell you about what they
actually believe because they have faith that their views are in line with reality.
They're talking about actual crises that actually exist and
that people actually support them.
That's just not what we're seeing, unfortunately.