All In with Chris Hayes 5/19/26 | 🅼🆂🅽🅱️🅲 Breaking News Today May 19, 2026

Indiziert: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]very very conservative right-wing member of the House of Representatives who took on Donald Trump over specifically the Epstein files and then the Iran war and a bunch of other stuff has lost. He was the marquee race of the night because Donald Trump set his sights on unseeding him in a Republican primary backing recruiting and putting a lot of money his political machinery behind Ed Galin who's the uh winner tonight declared by the Associated Press right now with 54.4% of the votes. We're going to have more on that in a moment. Obviously, that was the mark you race people were watching tonight. Polls just closed in Pennsylvania, another state where we've got a bunch of primaries happening there. Incumbent Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, Republican state treasury treasurer Stacy Gity are both running unopposed in their respective gubanatorial primaries. Shapiro, who's got one of the highest approval ratings of any governor in the country, is heavily favored to win re-election in November. There in that state seventh congressional district, it's a swing district. Four Democrats are facing off to be the nominee to unseat freshman Republican Ryan McKenzie. That includes union leader Bob Brooks, who's been endorsed by a very interesting cross-section of national Democrats.

[00:01:04]He's the one to watch. Governor Shapiro, Senator Bernie Sanders, former transportation secretary Pete Budajed, seen there with the candidate. In Pennsylvania's third district in Philadelphia, progressive Democrat Chris Rab, who rallied with AOC on Friday, is facing off against surgeon Alice Stanford and state senator Sharief Street to represent what is actually the bluest congressional district in the entire country. So, that'll be an interesting one to watch. And then in Georgia tonight, there's two candidates.

[00:01:29]It's a little bit of a strange and complicated race, but there are two candidates aligned with the Democratic party who've been endorsed by Barack Obama and are hoping to flip two seats on the state supreme court. Now, this hasn't happened in decades. I think maybe even a century. Um, conservative justices currently hold a 9 majority.

[00:01:44]We're going to be looking to see what the results pretend there. But the race, as I said earlier at the top of the show, that we've been watching most closely in Kentucky tonight is for the second time in just 3 days, a test of what the MAGA Republican party looks like in this era, in this era of Donald Trump and Donald Trump's dwindling approval. In that race, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, again, a very conservative and often extremely Trump aligned politician, but Trump critical on few high salience issues, just lost his primary challenge from a Trumpbacked candidate, a guy by the name of Ed Galrine. Now, this has been, I think, the most expensive race in history for congressional primary in no small part because Donald Trump was obsessed. I mean, as we know, Donald Trump can be. I mean, it basically it was Massie in the ballroom uh for the last several weeks with beating him, a deeply conservative right libertarian who got crosswise with Trump with his efforts really to force a successful vote to release the Epstein files. I mean, that is where this really started and where it got more and more intense. Now, the race, as I said, is the most expensive House primary in the country's history. There's been more than $25 million spent on this race in the primary.

[00:02:56]That is due in large part to the pro-Israel lobby dumping a ton of money against Massie, which is to say they and Donald Trump were sort of on the same side in this race. Massie is kind of a, let's say, a political isolationist.

[00:03:08]He's been very critical of Israel, very critical of the war in Iran, generally critical of Middle Eastern military interventions. Notably, we should also note the context here. The previous two most expensive primaries, which we've covered as well, were also due to pro-Israel groups like Apac or affiliated super PACs spending millions to unseat Democrats Jamal Bowman and Cory Bush in 2024. But in Kentucky, the spending of both sides, I got to say, led to some truly unhinged political ads.

[00:03:38]>> Thomas Massie caught in a throppple in Washington. He's cheating with the scar first movement. This is worse than adultery. It's a complete and total betrayal of President Trump and Kentucky conservatives. On May 19th, fire Thomas Massie.

[00:03:53]>> Eddie Galrine is bought and paid for by the LGBTQ mafia. Far-left trans activist billionaire Paul Singer is bringing his trans madness to Kentucky. Singer is spending millions to remove Massie. The gay mafia will own woke Eddie. I think we can all agree the voters were well served in that district by all that money being dumped in the race and got a got a good education on the issues. Now that that race is widely seen as a referendum on Trump's grip on the Republican party. Once again, we got to say the candidate he backed one which has been something of a theme. And that theme I think points to what I view as just like the fundamental tension and different two different realities in American politics at this moment. Right.

[00:04:36]So, as I speak to you tonight, roughly twothirds of the country disapproves of Donald Trump. I mean, his approval rating right now in the most recent highquality New York Times Sienna poll, which is often actually seen higher numbers for Trump than some of the other polls, his approval rating in their latest poll over the weekend, is 37%.

[00:04:55]That's the lowest of this term. It's flirting with the lowest ever. That 37% though, right? like a demiglaus as you sort of evaporate all the steam off the sauce, right? The 37% that's left, that's a 100% Trump in there.

[00:05:11]Those are the people who are showing up on Republican primary voting days, whether it's in Indiana or it's in Louisiana over the weekend or Kentucky, right? As the coalition collapses at large, the intensity of who's left only grows, which means Trump's control of that faction, increasingly a rump faction in American politics, is expanding at the at the same time that his grip on the country is withering.

[00:05:37]Which means this faction of Americans, the 37%, the 35%, who knows how low will go, are effectively kind of holding the rest of the country hostage. Right? the majority is being pillaged by the minority and this fundamental dynamic is also causing a bunch of political headaches for Republicans who remember do have to actually face all the voters in the fall, not just the MAGA faithful. So here's here's an example just from today. So big news today. Trump endorsed the almost comically scandal plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a man who his own party in uh Texas tried to impeach unsuccessfully because they thought he was so corrupt. He was endorsed by Donald Trump in his primary runoff election against the incumbent Republican senator John Cornin. And again, to be clear, Cornin is very conservative, right? He's votes with Donald Trump 99% of the time. He's also essentially a kind of establishment figure. He has occasionally been ever so softly, mildly critical of Donald Trump.

[00:06:38]In Trump's eyes, he's got to go. Trump's endorsement of Paxton all but seals the deal because, as we see, right, that endorsement carries a lot of weight in a Republican primary. But what's it mean for the general electorate? Senate Republicans are I'm not quite sure I can say the word on television for how angry they are. Like truly rip.

[00:06:58]And the reason is that well first of all Republicans in Texas generally think Paxton's awful person. That's just a description of how they find him. But also he is a truly terrible candidate. I mean Google the guy sometime. You could spend hours there. and he is so bad Democrats are again we've been here before but cautiously optimistic that their candidate of course James Terico state representative could actually have a shot at flipping the seat. Meanwhile, this comes on the heels of Saturday right when Louisiana's Republican Senator Bill Cassidy again very conservative guy lost his primary after Trump once again decided pure spite he had to go to there. The original sin, of course, was Cassidy voting to convict Donald Trump during a second impeachment trial for inciting the deadly insurrection that almost brought the constitutional order to a grinding halt for the first time since the Civil War.

[00:07:51]Cassidy came in third place in that race. He's not even going to advance the runoff election. And in case it's not clear, I'm not a particularly big fan of John Cornin or Bill Cassidy. And I I will say that Thomas Massie in the last year has shown genuine political courage. also his politics are extremely right-wing. Uh that said, their replacements will almost certainly be worse in substantive terms, political terms, and also more loyal to Donald Trump.

[00:08:17]That is, of course, unless James Tel Rico pulls up a win in Texas. That's all that's all he wants. He wants ma Republicans who are just down the line, right, slavishly devoted to him completely. people that will vote, for example, to take a billion dollars of public money, money that can go to, you know, lowering your electricity costs or helping with groceries or building out infrastructure to his ballroom, which he basically is the only thing he cares about now. And he wants people that are going to turn a blind eye to the increasingly extravagant, brazen, naked corruption being shoved in all of our faces day after day. and who will just let him shove that in our faces day after day and won't ask any questions about for instance his stock trading that's what America the 37% wants to force on the rest of us want to go down to MS now chief data reporter Ally Veli on the board ally um I felt like given what we've seen in Indiana with those state uh legislative races where Donald Trump endorsed the primary opponents uh of those legislators who had stood up against his redistricting and then coming off Cassidy this Y >> we didn't have a ton of high quality polling out of that district, but I had an inkling this is where this night was going. What's it look like?

[00:09:32]>> Yeah. No, you're right. In fact, I don't even want you to come to me. I want I want to continue hearing what you had to say about this cuz it's really good.

[00:09:37]We've got elections uh tonight in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, and Oregon. Let's go to Kentucky because this is what you're talking about right now. Let's go to the uh the House race uh House GOP primaries in Kentucky. Let's go to uh well, let's go to one first of all. Uh obviously James Comr has won that quite handily with 87.3% of the vote, but let's go to district 4 in Kentucky. This is what you've been talking about. Thomas Massie at 45. So he's lost by 10% with 76% of the vote in and everything seems to be trending further toward Ed Galrine who has been called as the guy who's going to win this. If you look at this at a county level, there are four big counties here. uh Oldm County on the west of the state, 22% of the county in.

[00:10:20]It's actually pretty close between the two of them. But look at these three big counties in the north of the state.

[00:10:24]Boone County, 88%. He's uh Gal Ryan's winning by more than 10 points there.

[00:10:28]Kenton County, uh very little of the vote in here, 23% but 10 points. Again, take a look at Kenton County, 23% but 10 points there. Even in the county that uh that that Thomas Massiey's in, 85% of the vote, that's where he won. He's won there with 63%. So, that's a very big part of the story. I want to tell you about a different story that's going on though in in Georgia because it's the only real election happening right now.

[00:10:54]These are all primaries. No big surprise. Whoever wins the Democran primary in Alabama is going to win that seat. Take a look at Georgia. This is a nonpartisan vote for the state state supreme court. Uh in this particular vote, this is going back and forth. 26% of the vote in. Miracle Rankin is the liberal candidate. Charles Bethl is the conservative candidate. This has been going back and forth. So, it' be very unclear as to that how that's uh playing out. I also want to look at the Senate uh GOP primary. Uh let me go back out to the uh the state and look at Louisiana, which you were talking about. Take a look at that. Bill Cassidy coming in third. Juliana Juliet LLO with the Donald Trump endorsement coming in with 44.8. It's not enough to win. So, she's going to have to go to a runoff against John Fleming. She's probably going to prevail in that, but that's exactly the point. Bill Cassidy uh voted against Trump, voted to impeach Trump, but he also voted, even though he was a doctor, he voted to confirm RFK Jr. You'd think that would have got him the Maha MAGA vote, but it didn't. They spent a million dollars in the campaign against him. So, the bottom line is if Trump doesn't like you today, your point is really valid. Only 37% of Americans support him, but 100% of those 37% really seem to support Donald Trump. And if he goes after you, he can probably still uh get you out of your seat. This doesn't affect Democratic voting, but for Republicans, tonight's an interesting night and a night that that really illustrates the the cracks and cleavages in the Republican party. Ally, thank you very much for that. MS Now congressional reporter M Schnell is in Hebbran, Kentucky at Congressman Massiey's headquarters. Michael, what's the mood there?

[00:12:31]>> Yeah, Chris, the mood was excited and has definitely died down a little bit.

[00:12:35]We do have some news. It sounds like the congressman is getting ready to come out right now. We do have some news though.

[00:12:41]Of course, there was the victory for Ed Galrine. I'm told by the campaign that Congressman Massie just called Ed Galrine to officially concede in this race. A crushing, crushing loss for Thomas Massie. He was a 14-year incumbent in the House and a massive victory for President Trump. This was, of course, the third stop on his so-called revenge store. He had that victory in ousting five Indiana state senators over his redistricting push.

[00:13:08]Then there was the victory ousting Bill Cassidy on Saturday. I spoke to Thomas Massie yesterday. He thought that his case would be different than those other two situations because he believed that when he broke with President Trump, he was doing what his constituents wanted.

[00:13:22]But of course, tonight the voters had spoken and they decided that they did not want Thomas Massie to continue to be their congressman. Thomas Massie right behind me right now speaking to his voters and his supporters here.

[00:13:40]I did get the call through though. I have I have called and conceded the race. Um we've been honorable the whole time and we're going to stay that way.

[00:13:54]>> You know, welcome to the most expensive congressional primary ever in the 250 year history of this country. It's not just the most expensive. This thing went on longer than Vietnam.

[00:14:08]It started nine months ago and this they didn't even have a candidate and they decided they want to take me out. Um, I want to start by thanking the volunteers who have put so much effort into this.

[00:14:20]Some of you came from all across the country. Some of you are homegrown.

[00:14:24]Well, I love all of you.

[00:14:36]All right. Hold on. Hold on.

[00:14:52]>> I see I see how this is going to work.

[00:14:54]I'm going to have to not quit talking or you'll start doing this. Um, I want to thank my staff, too. Some of my staff have been with me from the very first race in 2012, and they have done so much. The, you know, we've never had, contrary to all the BS you've heard, we've never had a single ethics complaint filed against me or my staff in 14 years.

[00:15:26]I >> I want to I want to thank the donors.

[00:15:29]Now listen, I'd name them all, but there's 50,000 donors, okay?

[00:15:39]>> We didn't we didn't lose this race because we didn't have enough money. You know, it it is the most expensive race ever. I think when they add it up, right now they can count 35 million. I think when they add it up, it's going to be a lot more than that because on our side, we know we spent more than 15 million and um we were able to go toe-to-toe.

[00:16:00]There was never a week that we got outspent more than 2 to1 in this entire race um once it got underway. And that's that's also it did it wasn't just the grassroots donors. We had a long time one of my longest friends. He went through a a rough spell and I never left left him. I always supported him and he actually started the super PAC, the one that nobody knows who runs it. Um Cliff Maloney, if you're around, would you come up here?

[00:16:33]Maybe I can get him out here to take some credit.

[00:16:38]Or if he's in the crowd, just pick him up and surf him over here.

[00:16:44]>> Uh Cliff, >> CLIFF, >> I see having conceded his race to his Trumpbacked opponent there uh in Kucky's uh fourth district uh in the Cincinnati suburbs, very conservative district where he is bringing to a close his career in uh Congress. Michael Schnell there covering for us. Uh, I want to bring in Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who's joining me now and surveying all of this. Um, >> what do you think about this fundamental dynamic that we now have of Trump's grip on the Republican party sort of arguably stronger even maybe than it's ever been, grip on the country weaker, and what that means for what happens.

[00:17:31]>> So, it's a tighter and tighter hold on a smaller and smaller group.

[00:17:36]>> Yeah. Yes.

[00:17:38]So it but that was really the point. I I've heard the commentators say and the people decided they didn't want to support mass. No, >> the people who showed up at a Republican primary decided they didn't want him to be their standard bearer.

[00:17:52]>> You know, if this been an open anybody votes, if this had been a general, I don't know exact how that goes, >> right? But I think this is the part it's interesting to watch and to watch what the dynamic will be on Republicans who say, "Man, I'm not crossing that guy."

[00:18:07]On the elected Republicans, we know who they belong to. But the reality is we're 5 months out. We're going to have a general election and boy is that going to start shaking things.

[00:18:20]>> So there's so there's a bunch of cross pressure. I mean, right now we're already seeing the fallout in the Senate today. Yeah.

[00:18:25]>> Right. Um in a few different ways. I want to talk one one day one way was there was a war power resolution today and for the first time Democrats party line except for John Federman have been voting for it. Republicans have voting against it except for Rand Paul those two have been switching today uh Bill Cassidy fresh off that loss on Saturday crossed the line and voted with you and your colleagues uh to put it over the hump which means it will now call a vote is how I understand the procedure. Um what do you make of that development and also what it pretends for this Senate for the next four or five? Could you say more clearly that if I'd been voting my conscience all along, I would not have been voting with Donald Trump?

[00:19:01]>> Talk about a confession. I mean, it's really wild.

[00:19:04]>> It's just like a moment of uh of of just the now we can see what's really going on. And so you look at all the other guys who are still voting in line with Donald Trump. You watch these elections and look, there's no voter who's going to be fooled after the next after today, right? Is there anybody left who thinks that there is an elected Republican who is actually voting his conscience doing what he thinks is best for all of the people of his district? How does he stand up in front of the electorate for the next five and a half months as he faces the general elector and say, you know what matters most to me and with a straight face says you. Rather than pleasing Donald Trump. Well, and and I think there's a a strange kind of coincidence of interest here, which is that both Donald Trump and I would argue the Democratic party probably want it to be the case that voters understand that Donald Trump is the Republican party and the Republican party is Donald Trump.

[00:20:01]Well, I mean, at this point, right, >> that's reality. It's it we'd like people to understand reality. But here's the thing. What Democrats will do now and are doing already is they are both going after Donald Trump. Remember the man who said what would he do? He would lower costs on day one. And where are we on cost? Cost of groceries is up. Cost of gasoline is up. Cost of healthcare is up. Cost of utilities is up. Cost of housing is up. And he told us he would keep us safe and stay out of wars. And you can do your own count on how many he's in, but what I know he says might be another one in Cuba. Who knows?

[00:20:37]>> That's right. A billion dollars a day to kill people halfway around the world.

[00:20:42]and still can't explain how that helps one single family here in America. So, we're going to stay on that. But here's the other half. We're also going to be making the affirmative case. And that's not just he sucks, right?

[00:20:55]>> Our case is going to be here are the things that we'll lay out that we will commit to get done that will affect your family, that will lower your costs. I think that's going to be the key. I I want to talk about that contrast, but I want to stay on for a second on the way that he is using taxpayer money and pushing them. I mean, because now you got this this I I think this ballroom thing is really wild, right? I mean, originally it was I'm raising private funds. Now it's I must have a billion dollars. He's monomomaniacally obsessed with it. Over the weekend, the Senate parliamentarian, for somewhat complicated reasons, stripped out the ballroom funding out of the bill. They want to pass on a partyline vote to begin with, right? They're not even they're not consulting you. There's no negotiation on this. Um, and Trump is so obsessed with this. I mean, it's all he talks about really. He did an event today about it. He calls up Thoon, Senate Majority Leader, to basically say, "You should file fire the parliamentarian." Um, and he he wants to get this through. But this just strikes me. I mean, when you're talking about this contrast of like what they stand for, like they're spend a billion dollars in the guy's ballroom. Yeah. As people's grocery as all their costs explode.

[00:21:58]>> It is an opportunity to be like, "Well, here's what we would do with money."

[00:22:01]>> Exactly. Because that really is the heart of it. Donald Trump has now said with the cameras running, "Nah, we can't do child care, right? We can't do that because we got this war to fight halfway around the world."

[00:22:13]>> Yeah, he literally said that. That's not a I want to say that's not a gross mischaracterization. This explicitly will >> he literally said it. He spends hours, right, online doing memes about the war or about Donald Trump in a triumphal arch or in a madeup AI thing where he's floating in the in the reflecting pool.

[00:22:36]U he spends hours on this. He spends energy on this. He talks about the ballroom.

[00:22:43]>> And where is he on your groceries? Where is he on the fact that your utilities are up 67%.

[00:22:51]Where is he on the ways that his own policies, his tariff policy, his energy policy, his healthc care policy, and his war have driven your costs up and up and up and up. And the answer is nobody home. Don't want to talk about it. Get mad if somebody raises it. He doesn't want to talk about. But here's what we're betting on. that this is what elections are about. Yeah.

[00:23:16]>> And when we hit the general election, Democrats are going to say, "I'm gonna talk about this stuff."

[00:23:21]>> He I mean, he has been very focused in the ballroom. He is very focused on uh I I think essentially enriching his himself, his family, and his support.

[00:23:31]>> Well, that's the other half, right? It's also on making himself rich.

[00:23:35]>> So, I want to talk about this. I I have you here. I mean, I have to say this to call it a settlement is too charitable and generous. It's it's it's a shakedown. It's not even it's not even a court approved settlement in a technical sense, right? I mean, they're they're calling it that, but you know, we've got a $1.8 billion slush fund that's going to be given out by essentially his appointees at will to whoever attached to it today. On top of that, as someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about tax fairness and particularly the tax incidents of the wealthiest and most connected Americans, a a a crazy writer that came out today that basically says they dropping all audits can never investigate him or his companies or his family or anyone ever ever ever for anything the IRS.

[00:24:17]>> I I guess I'm left speechless. It sort of melted my ability to analyze it, but what is your response to it?

[00:24:22]>> Well, you know, you've got it exactly right. So, start on the first part of it. And this is this 1.8 8 billion. Can we just underline here? That's not some random 1.8 billion. It's not 1.8 billion that fell out of the sky. This is taxpayer dollars. This is stand up in front of a group of people and say your money.

[00:24:41]>> Yeah. Put dig in your pockets.

[00:24:43]>> Your money. That's exactly right. Didn't go to lowering the cost of healthare. It didn't go to child care. It didn't go to bringing down your costs or even paving a road out here. It went to Donald Trump to distribute, I don't know, to people who beat up cops on January 6. It goes to whoever Donald Trump's favorite person of the hour is. Nobody gets ruled out here, no matter what kind of crook you are. So that's the first part is the money part.

[00:25:13]>> I mean, it's we should just say it's essentially explicitly a fund for crooks in some sense because I mean, not which is not to say that everyone's prosecutor is a crook. I want to be very clear about that. But but I mean that it's really pointing in that direction just to be clear. Yeah.

[00:25:28]>> Pointing pretty sharply as in finger right at your nose. Yeah. Okay.

[00:25:33]>> But look at what happens in the other part of what he's done. I don't know how else you could hold up a bigger sign that says the president of the United States is deeply concerned that he has committed tax fraud. members of his family have committed tax fraud over a long period of time and as soon as somebody other than Donald Trump is in charge, uh those chickens are going to come home to roost and poop all over him. And so, >> right, then to insist on this as the settlement writer.

[00:26:06]>> That's right. That this is the settlement writer right this minute. And by the way, it almost has you said you can't analyze it for me. It has just a little bit of the flavor of, oh, the general election is coming up and if Democrats are there in the House and the Senate and have some control, they might be doing hearings, putting breaks, they may be reigning in. So, it's like watching somebody who's been gorging on corruption, who is just who is loaded with corruption and says, "Let's stuff in a few more pieces >> before the guys come who might take the food away from the table >> on the sort of the sort of corruption priorities and cost question, which I agree is like the center right now of the campaign. It's like the guy wants to build a ballroom, wants to pay out his friends. Are you better off? You're not.

[00:26:55]Things are more expensive." His own war, he he started all this. It's not like you know Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and cost went up. Joe Biden took the blame but was not a lot he could done about this is a very different situation but there also is a question of like tangibly it's like even if you have Senate majorities there's not a Senate majority house majority like how much you can actually do to bring down costs for folks >> you know I don't see it that way. So I see what we can start with is we can do the investigations and start beating back on the corruption. And let's not forget on this, the corruption and the costs are not running independently.

[00:27:29]They're actually feeding each other.

[00:27:31]Correct. Why are your utility bills so high? Well, could part of it be that Donald Trump took a million dollars from a billion dollars from the oil industry and keeps delivering on that. So every place where we've got oversight capacity independently to call people in to cut off budgets to demand from the various actors may not be Donald Trump himself but from the people who are running the administration. It gives us a purchase.

[00:27:58]It gives us a foot in the door to be able to push back on that. Second thing is look where we are right now. Donald Trump and the Republicans have nothing to show for having been in power for a year and a half. They're gonna have to turn around and run on, hi, here's what we did. A ballroom, right, >> that isn't finished. And a reflecting pool that looks like a Holiday and swimming pool.

[00:28:21]>> The estate act tax exemption is nice is nice and big. I will say >> tax breaks for billionaires, for meta, for the big guys. Okay, that's what they've got to run on. One of the things we will be in a position to do if we have House and Senate is start pushing through our agenda, push through our child care bill. And now it's up to Donald Trump >> to >> Right.

[00:28:43]>> What are you going to do, baby?

[00:28:44]>> Yeah.

[00:28:45]>> You going to veto it because it came from the Democrats or you going to pony up and sign it and reduce costs for American families? So don't tell me that we're going to be handcuffed until 2028.

[00:28:57]Nope. The fight starts the day after the election if we've got the power.

[00:29:02]>> Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, thank you for making time and for being patient as we work through this busy election night. Great to have you here.

[00:29:08]>> Thank you.

[00:29:09]>> Still ahead, the president of United States is trading stocks at a almost just incomprehensively rate. Carson Jimmy Raskin joins me next.