Welcome to the beat, everyone. It is Friday. But it is one of those Fridays with a lot of news.

There's even more fallout from the scandal engulfing Fox News and Rupert Murdoch. We have that later tonight. My colleague Chris Hayes is here live with us tonight, along with his fellow author Gary Steingard. Two authors, one place, one show. Stick with us. You will hear from them by the end of the hour. We begin right now, though, with the political heat emanating from this CPAC gathering in the

Beltway. And it underscores a dilemma that we're going to get into right now for Republicans

in real time. After the bruising midterms, where voters largely recoiled from the GOP's big lie

and the Trumpy obsessions of so many candidates, which led the

party to underperform at a historic scale. We all know that. The party knows that. And yet this

gathering is televising. The outright domination, sometimes even self-parody of once fringe

figures now seemingly in charge, candidates who may run against Trump, decided to cut and run from even trying to make a CPAC appearance, seating the stage to MAGA leaders, doubling down on things that turned off many voters in November.

The far left, the progressives, the crazies. The Murdox immediately have to start covering President Trump.

How much money the Biden's got from China. Pennsylvania managed to elect a vegetable.

Remove the Democrats from our investigation. Our God is the God that created us man and woman.

Now, some of these claims, some of what became a kind of outlandish set of attacks, feel like Maga's greatest hits.

Culture Wars on stage.

Attendees we've seen with plenty of Trump gear and other things you can see on the screen there,

but this isn't just about programming.

The themes and fixations of the far right are shaping laws right now, maybe where you live.

And while there are many pressing issues that we heard about in the midterms from the economy

to post-COVID disruptions to having some level of oversight over the Biden administration,

those are all real issues. But across America, Republicans are pushing the culture war within government, Texas Republicans,

pushing a lot to distribute government funds only to, quote, heterosexual families. That's likely

unconstitutional. Missouri Republicans have this DeSantis blueprint from Florida. They want to restrict

the discussion or support of equal rights.

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