59:34 and First off, this indictment does not legally disqualify the former president from running. So he is continuing to run. But I spoke to a number of GOP strategists who told me that in the short term they believe that this helps Trump because essentially it It requires all of his rivals or would-be rivals to have to respond him, to talk about him, to define themselves in association with him. And now whether or not that extends all the way through the primary into the nomination is a big question. There's a lot of time left on the board. So we've heard repeatedly Mr Trump and his Republican allies calling out what they call the weaponization of the justice system, calling all these investigations witch hunts when you talk to extremism experts in particular? What do they tell you about the implications
1:00:33 Wait a minute, do we have any quotes from said extremism experts? This is a new gig. I haven't heard of the extremist experts. So that language you just mentioned Omna weaponization has been used by Trump as well as House GOP leaders like Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise and a number of other Republicans they've also used words like quote persecution witch hunt And I spoke to historian Ruth Ben-Ghi out of New York University today and she diagnosed that victimization Oh, I'm sorry The question was, what are the extremism experts saying? And apparently she's the expert. And then there is some librarian or something she brings into it. She brought in a historian from New York I think NYU Okay so that's the extremists... Alright Well I guess she is but then... I want to play it again It's almost over, let me play it again What do they tell you about the implications of that kind of language
1:01:26 So, that language that you just mentioned, Amna—weaponization—has been used by Trump as well as House GOP leaders like Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise and a number of other Republicans. They've also used words like, quote, persecution, witch hunt. And I spoke to historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat of New York University today, and she diagnosed that victimization language. This is talking point of authoritarians to try and get the public to see the forces against them as discredited partisan hacks and thus retain their reputation for being the ones who are going to drain the swamp, which was Mussolini's slogan initially. Okay it's in the show notes yes yes. It is in the show notes this is bullcrap
1:02:17 This Mussolini thing came out of it, Albright, Madeline Albright wrote a book and she threw it in there as a toss away that he did. He did actually say drain the swamps a couple of times referring to actual swamps that needed draining. No you're kidding me! Real swamps? And so PolitiFact, and it's in the show notes had done research on this because it sounded like bull crap to them. And it turned out to be bull crap! Mussolini never used drain the swamps in a sense that Trump did and then they use the term in their little report that this phrase used as Trump uses is all American. American as apple pie is exactly what they said. So this woman who was a historian
1:03:10 who's an expert I guess on some sort of authoritarianism. May i read from her bio? Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian who writes about authoritarianism, democracy protection and propaganda she's a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University the recipient of Guggenheim, Fulbright and other fellowships an advisor to protect democracy. And she's an MSNBC opinion columnist so she's not an expert on terrorism or what was it extremism? Extremism but authoritarianism and specifically history and Italian studies and she doesn't even know that this is bullcrap regarding Mussolini
1:03:58 She doesn't want to know. She's a classic, I don't want to call them liberal NYU professor that just kind of lockstep into a certain way of thinking and she's disqualified unless PolitiFact got it wrong which doesn't seem to be the case they were very thorough. She wrote the book Strongmen Miscellany To The Present published in 2020, a look at how illiberal leaders use propaganda corruption violence and machismo and how they can be defeated. Wow! So the point is this is another example to me having done you know I look at it and then other people have I guess because this was very controversial when Madeleine Albright made the claim which is where I think she got this idea