have the first votes in one of r those parties, in the republican party, to decide who the winner will be of their contested primary for the republican party's presidential nominating contest this year. and you know all that.

but it's worth just, sort of, going back to brass tacks, i think, for a second. in a two-party system, each party is important, right? in a two-party system, the relative strength, the relative skill, the organizational capacity, the financial status, the size, the health and capacity of each party is at least a little bit important in every single state in the country. even in states that are dominated by one party or the other, the health and the capacity of each party matters. it's particularly crucial, of course, in swing states, though, where one party doesn't dominate and the places it's likely to be a close race between the republican nominee and the democratic nominee and the general election this fall. it is particularly important how healthy the state parties are on both sides.e and the battleground states, the swing states these days, it's at familiar list.

states like arizona, georgia, pennsylvania, michigan, a few others. given all that, though, here's today's pop quiz. here's today's actually kind of a hard question question about those politics. is there a republican party in michigan right now?ig and if so, what is it, and how do you find it? w this is actually a hard questio right now because if you go to migop.org -- mi, for michigan, a migop.org, which has long been the web address of the michigan republican party, migop.org, right now, here's what you find. here's their website. it's live right now as we're looking at it. it's a slick website. it's got a video thing playing k in the background. but what's that weird banner across the top. that banner says, a small fringe faction of state committee members staged an illegitimate g gathering to claim removal of chairwoman kristina karamo. if you click on that weird banner, you get to this. and the black box there is a video. i swear i'm not going to show you a whole big, long swath of

it because it will haunt your dreams. it will at least make you get up immediately and start cleaning your eye glasses. but this really is what pops up at what appears to be the michigan republican party website right now. and if you click on the black box there, this is what happenst i've got to tell you, this does not seem good. >> hi. my name is dan hartman. i am still the general counsel for the michigan republican party. today's date is january 6th of 2024, and i am a member of the karamo administration. there was a vote taken today at a meeting. it was not an authorized special meeting. >> it was not an authorized special meeting. this seems like a very special meeting indeed. in politics or in anything, it is never a good sign when you have to start your remarks by insisting, i am still here. as if that might be a contested thing. but that is what's going on at

what might be the michigan republican party's website tonight. that's migop.org. i am still the general counsel for the michigan republican party.ch but maybe that's not the michigan republican party anymore. maybe the michigan republican party is no longer at migop.org. maybe the real michigan republican party is at mi-gop.org. the punctuation is sometimes everything. ask the armed panda near you. eats shoots and leaves. if you put a dash between the mi and the gop at mi-gop.org, you find yourself at a totally different michigan republican party website, one where the chair is not kristina karamo but rather this other person, a totally different person. how can both of these people be the chair of the michigan republican party? p how can both of these things be the michigan republican party? well, you could try to click

through, but it turns out ut there's nothing to click on on this other michigan republican party web page. but they do both purport to be the same thing. here it says at the bottom of the page, january 6, 2024, this weekend gop state committee members voted to remove chair kristina karamo. did they do that? has she been removed? the other michigan republican party website says it's a fraud, she wasn't really removed. we have a two-party system. we are one week away from the first votes in our election for president this year in the republican party primary. you tell me. is there a republican party in swing state michigan? is there one? are there two? how do you tell the difference? each of these totally different websites with totally different chairs says literally, paid for by the michigan republican party. but they appear to be two

different unrelated things with two different people in charge. one group says there was a vote to remove the party chair and th she's gone, she's no longer the party chair. the other group says the old r. party chair is still there and the vote wasn't a real vote. choose your fighter. so, that's the state of affairs this election year in one of the most important swing states in the world's oldest, most prestigious, most admired democracy in the most powerful country on earth. we are a two-party democracy, except in michigan, where it's three parties and the only way t you can tell the difference between two of them is that there's a dash in one of their names that's not in the other.da that's where we are. "the detroit news" recently reported that former president donald trump personally intervened. he personally made phone calls, in some cases with the national republican party chairwoman on the line with them, pressuring local officials in michigan to

throw out the election results in that state after he lost his re-election effort in 2020. that effort in michigan failed, as it did nationwide.t but in the wake of that michigan effort, trump endorsed one of his election denier supporters when she ran in 2022 to become michigan secretary of state. she lost very badly. she lost by 14 points. i should tell you that she denies the existence of that election result as well. she refuses to admit that she lost, let alone by that huge margin. after nevertheless losing that race, she was elected to take over the state republican party and become its chair. under her leadership, the party fell hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt. i'm not sure whether that hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt includes the more than $100,000 that the party, under her leadership, agreed to pay to the qanon promoting hollywood actor, jim caviezel, to make a speech at a recent michigan republican party event. over $100,000 for jim when the republican party is bankrupt inp

that state. or at least deeply in debt. there have also been multiple physical confrontations, fights and stuff, at official michigan republican party events in the past year.pa at last check, the michigan republican party was involved in an interesting new legal fight, in which they're trying to earn the right to sell off their state headquarters for cash. they have to go to court to do this, but they're trying. "the new york times" reported that over the holiday break -- excuse me. "the new york times" reported over the holiday that after the party stopped paying the electric bills at this same headquarters, that powered down the electronic locks on the building, which left the whole thing open to the public with unlocked doors. open to the public but cold because it's winter in michigan. so, now, maybe the michigan ay republican party isn't controlled by that same trump p supported chair anymore under b whose leadership the party has h gone hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and is trying to

sell its headquarters, which is unlocked. or maybe it is still controlled by her. who knows? depends on which website you go to. w depends on whether you put the dash in the name when you try to find the michigan republican party's website. there are two entities competing with two different leaders that both claim to be the official michigan republican party as of right now.ep it was the reporter jonathan oosting, from bridge, michigan today, who first pointed out the two dueling iterations. he told us tonight he thinks it will have to be a court or a national republican party that will have to step in and decide which of these two competing entities is the real republican party from here on out. but as of now, it is not clear. and the silence you hear through all of this is the michigan democratic party, which is doing great. p in michigan, the democratic party controls both houses of

the michigan legislature and the governorship and both u.s. senate seats and all of the state-wide offices. so, yeah, they're not -- they're not saying much about this. it may not be the first rule of politics, but it's right up there. when your opponents are fracturing and occasionally punching each other in the nose and leaving the doors unlocked at their state headquarters and then fighting in the courts to try to sell that headquarters for cash that they might very well end up giving to a weirdo hollywood actor who promotes qanon, when that befalls your political opponent, in a two-party system, the rule is, shh. say nothing. leave them to their thing. they're doing fine on their own. but that's the state of play right now in michigan. again, one of the most important swing states in the country. in florida today, which not that long ago was the most famous swing state of them all. the florida republican party voted to oust its chairman as

welcome. the florida case is a little different than michigan. in florida, the chairman was also refusing to go, despite people really wanting him to go. the reason they wanted him to go in florida is because he's being investigated by police in an alleged rape case, an alleged sexual assault case. the florida republican party chairman has been under police investigation in florida, reportedly since october. there is reportedly a video recording of the alleged sexual assault, which has been shown to police. nevertheless, the florida republican party chairman has been refusing calls to resign. he was only removed from his chairmanship today in florida against his will. so, in big, important states like michigan and florida, this tells you something about the health of the republican party in the trump era and perhaps in the trump and ron desantis era,

since one of those states is florida. and we'll see how this all resolves.e in michigan, over time, presumably they'll have to sort it out somehow. you can't have two parties that both claim to be the republican party of michigan. you can't have two different people who claim to be the republican party chair in michigan with the other one illegitimate and a usurper and part of a sinister plot. in florida at least, though, they did sort it out today, this messy gut-churning effort to throw out their party leader for being an accused rapist. it did finally finish today. they did finally throw him out. and that does at least show you that political parties, even today, are capable of policing themselves to exclude bad actors from their leadership, to exclude, say, people accused of sexual assault. former president trump himself was recently found by a court to be liable for a sexual assault in new york state. that's a court finding, not just

an accusation like in florida, not just a police investigation like in florida. what this action by florida state republican party today shows is they have ousted their state republican party chairman over these allegations. what this shows is that the national republican party could do the same thing. they very well could have taken seriously their own institutional responsibility, their own gate-keeping role. if the florida republican party can remove their leader, can end the political career of their leader for an allegation of sexual assault, the national republican party could have at least tried to do the same thing for their leader, who was found by a court to be liable for the same thing. but the national republican party did no such thing. they could, but they didn't try. in a two-party system, the -p parties matter. political institutions are a thing.

political institutions matter. and in our two-party system, each of the two parties matters a lot, even when they stink, even when they're mired in scandal. one year ago today, supporters of the far right election-denying former president of brazil, jair bolsonaro, stormed the brazilian congress and supreme court and presidential offices. they rioted. they violently tried to overturn the results of the election, in which their hero, president jair bolsonaro, had been voted out of office. that was one year ago today. our attack on our capitol to tro to keep trump in office, that was january 6, 2021. their attack on their capitol, that was january 8th, two years later. and here today is "new york times" brazil bureau chief, jack nickas writing about that experience. he said, quote, there were two shocking attacks on the western hemisphere's two largest 's democracies, both broadcast around the world and both

prompted by presidents who had questioned their legitimate election losses. each posed an extraordinary test of the country's democracy, and each raised the question of how a deeply polarized society would move forward in the wake of such an assault. with time, the answer to that question is becoming clear. the parallel attacks have had nearly opposite aftermaths. in the united states, support is soaring for donald j. trump's campaign to retake the white house, as he frames his 2020 election loss as the real insurrection and january 6th as a, quote, beautiful day. at the same time, his counterpart in brazil, the far right former president jair er bolsonaro, has quickly faded into political irrelevance. six months after he left office last year, electoral officials barred him from running again until 2030. and many right wing leaders have shunned him.ig why have there been such contrasting reactions to such similar threats?

researchers and analysts point to a multitude of reasons, including the countries' differing political systems, media landscapes, national histories and judicial responses. but one especially stands out. a harvard professor of government, coauthor of the book "how democracies die," who has studied the american and brazilian democracies says that leaders on brazil's right, quote, publicly, clearly, unambiguously accepted the results of the election and did exactly what politicians are supposed to do. he said, quote, that is o strikingly different from how republicans responded in the united states.s jair bolsonaro and trump both na stoked their supporters into a violent effort to seize power by force after losing an election. bolsonaro has since become totally irrelevant in politics in brazil, while trump is still at the head of the republican w party in the united states and is poised to become the party's nominee for president again. now, part of that is, yes, that

a brazilian court ruled that bolsonaro cannot run for office again until 2030. he is disqualified from politics for the time being because of what he did. for trump in this country, it's an open question as to whether he might face the same kind of disqualification. the super-conservative u.s. supreme court will take up that question just one month from today on february 8th. so, it's partly a matter of whether or not there's a judicial penalty for effectively waging war against your own country's democracy. but it's also a matter of how republicans, how the party, how american republican leaders have reacted to this violence from their own leader, how they have reacted to this antidemocratic turn in the leadership of their party. it is not just a trump problem. it's that republicans like what trump did, and they don't mind

the idea of him doing it again. republican members of congress and u.s. senators still voted to throw out the results of the 2020 election the night after the violent attack on congress in january 2021. even today polls in iowa ahead of next week's caucuses show that trump's pledge to root out his enemies like vermin, claims like that make iowa republican voters more likely to vote for him, not less. when trump was criticized for saying immigrants are poisoning the blood of america, when he was criticized for that because that's literally what adolf izer hitler said about non-arians in mein kampf. that claim from trump polled so well with republicans and so well received with republican voters, he not only has kept using that sameha language over and over again, he's now

institutionalizing it. today the new anti-nikki haley ad is an anti-immigrant ad that is titled, poisoning, to remind people that trump has adopted that hitler phraseology. republicans like this stuff. in brazil, the right did not like this stuff, and they rejected jair bolsonaro's efforts to stay in power by force. and that now means bolsonaro is exiled and irrelevant. but where did bolsonaro exile to? where did he go when he fled brazil, fleeing -- when he fled brazil, fearing prosecution? he fled to florida to ron desantis' florida, where, as if the point wasn't clear enough, pro-trump republican groups have greeted him like a hero. >> ladies and gentlemen, get on your feet and join me in welcoming president bolsonaro. >> bolsonaro greeted with a

hero's welcome at the pro-trump turning point usa florida event in orlando. somebody from the crowd yells, i love you, i love you. he goes, i love you, i love you. [ crowd chanting ] he loves them. they love him. bolsonaro rejected in his own country, rejected by the right wing in his own country for his effort to violently overthrow the second largest democracy in the western hemisphere, he is celebrated by the republican right wing in the country, rejected in his own country, celebrated by our right wingers, where the effort to violently overthrow the largest democracy in the western hemisphere, us, has just been taking a three-year breather, and they're going to put up the guy who tried it again. it is not a trump problem. it's a republican party problem. this is what they want. other right wingers who have charismatic leaders like trump

around the world don't necessarily get behind them when they try violence to stay in power. our republicans do. and so this is how we get to th first two speeches of the president joe biden re-election effort in 2024. friday at valley forge in pennsylvania and today at the mother emmanuel ame church in charleston, south carolina, the two kickoff speeches of his re-election campaign.n speeches about our status as a democracy, the fight to establish ourselves as a democracy in the revolutionary u war, the fight to keep our democracy in the civil war, the threat to end democracy today posed by the republican party and trump. and i don't know. i don't have insider information, but i doubt this is the ground on which the biden campaign hoped to be making its case for re-election. they have other things they want to talk about, like nancy pelosi was just describing with jen psaki in her exclusive interview tonight. they want to talk about kitchen table issues, right?

and they have a lot to talk about. the unemployment rate has been below 4% -- below 4% -- for nearly two straight years. that means this is the best jobs market in america since the 1960s. jobs numbers under president joe biden are better than every single year of job numbers under president donald trump, including the years that trump says were the best economic years ever. actually, no. joe biden's are better. the uninsured rate is the lowest in american history.n for the last full quarter we have numbers for, the annual economic growth rate in this country was 5.2%, which is an impossibly high number. remember when all the economists said there was going to be a recession in 2023? how about 5.2% annual growth rate instead?5. prices are coming down, including gas prices. wages are going up. under joe biden, the united states is doing better than every single other major economy in the world since covid.

fighting against republicans every step of the way, joe biden has zeroed out or reduced student loan monthly payments for tens of millions of americans with crushing student loan debt. i mean, you talk about a contrast with the republican party. joe biden has reduced or zeroed out student loan payments for tens of millions of americans en and has fought to do it for more. what's the republican idea? that joe biden would love to be running against on that subject? well, hit it, governor desantis. let's hear from you. >> the reality is we've had a generation of students go deep into debt, and some of them end up with degrees in things like zombie studies, which are just not making a difference. a lot of these degrees have not given people a pathway to success, and it's caused them to be deep in debt. so, what are you going to do about that?

student loans should be dischargeable in bankruptcy. >> first of all, y'all majored in terrible things, so you deserve it. but also, you know, okay, if you've got terrible debt, behold the republican plan for student debt. declare bankruptcy, you guys. hey, students, declare bankruptcy. that will set you up for success. that's how republicans think you should deal with high student debt. you're not going to get any help from us. just declare yourself bankrupt personally. the biden campaign, i'm sure, would love to be running on t that. in iowa this week, ahead of the caucuses one week from today, the trump campaign has schedulee an event with republican governor sarah huckabee sanders. what is sarah huckabee sanders famous for since she stopped being the trump white house spokesperson? as governor, she has r, distinguished herself by

repealing child labor laws. who doesn't think there isn't anything wrong with america that couldn't be fixed by chaining more children to the looms? the biden campaign, i'm sure, would love to be running on issues like that. on the issue of abortion rights, as of tonight, we are seeing the first news reporting from "the new yorker" about the first american woman who may have died in texas because of the om republicans' abortion ban there. her name was yeni glick. she was married. it was a high-risk pregnancy. four outside experts have concluded that when the life-threatening complications started in her high-risk pregnancy, had she been offered an abortion, it, quote, probably would have saved her life. she died. the united states supreme court, dominated by republican appointees, has just allowed republican controlled idaho state government to reinstate its new abortion ban, which threatens doctors with five years in prison if they perform an abortion in the case of a medical emergency threatening the health of a woman.

they're letting that go into effect in idaho while the courtd considers idaho overall -- idaho's overall abortion ban. the court is not going to consider that idaho abortion n ban, though, until april. and the law will be in effect until then. so, idaho doctors will have at least a few months now when they will have to decide between prison, five years in prison, and trying to save patients, ng literally in the emergency room. the biden campaign, i'm sure, would appreciate running on issues like that. but instead, they are having to run on issues like this. >> eventually it culminated, the long simmering break between he and myself in june of 2020 when he wanted to play active duty troops on the street of washington, d.c. and suggested actually that we shoot americans in the streets. >> when he suggested that we ee shoot americans in the streets. trump's former defense secretary mark esper. the differences between the democratic party and the republican party are myriad and

important. in a two-party system, each party, by definition, is really important. even when the party is occasionally a hot mess. but once one of those two parties is knowingly picking the shoot americans in the street option, the violent overthrow of the government option, the dictatorship on day one option, it does get hard to talk about anything else. and so here we go. iowa is a week from tonight. the republican cause of their front running candidate has already seen 1,200 people criminally charged, over 800 convicted or pled guilty, and their candidate himself facing 91 felonies. his republican primary opponents, both nikki haley andb ron desantis, say they will pardon him if they are elected. and this, by definition, will have to be the grounds on which the entire contest is fought this year, not because of one man but because this is one

whole party that has picked this as their cause. so, here we go. 2024, be there. will be wild. to duckduckgo on all your devie

duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. i think he's having a midlife crisis join the mi'm not.of people taking back their privacy you got us t-mobile home internet lite. after a week of streaming they knocked us down... ...to dial up speeds. like from the 90s. great times. all i can do say is that my life is pre-- i like watching the puddles gather rain. -hey, your mom and i procreated to that song. oh, ew! i think you've said enough. why don't we just switch to xfinity like everyone else? then you would know what year it was.

i know what year it is. an extreme movement of america, the maga republicans, led by a defeated president is trying to steal history now. they're trying to steal an election. now they're trying to steal history, telling us that violent mob was, and i quote, a peaceful protest, that those insurrectionists were -- these are his words -- patriots, that there was, quote, a lot of love that day. in fact, the rest of the nation and the world saw a lot of hate and violence. >> president biden speaking today at mother emmanuel ame church in charleston, south carolina, which in 2015 was the site of a sun massacre by a 21-year-old white supremacist obsessed with the confederate

flag and the confederate cause. he opened fire on a black church bible study, shot ten black parishers and killed nine of them. president biden saying today, quote, after the civil war, the defeated confederates couldn't accept the verdict of a war they lost. so, they embraced what is known as the lost cause, the self-serving lie that the civil war was not about slavery but about states rights. that was a lie, he said, today. now, he said, we're living in an era of a second lost cause. once again, there are some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie, a lie, which if allowed to live, will bring terrible damage to this country. this time, the lie is about the 2020 election. joining us now here on set is congressman adam schiff, a democrat of california. congressman, it's really nice to have you here in person. thank you for coming in. >> good to be with you. >> it's good to see you. president biden -- i think, i

don't know, but i think not necessarily by his own choice but by necessity, is focusing his campaign on threats to democracy. you very famously have made that case to the american public yourself in your role in the impeachment and the january 6th investigation. what do you make of this strategic call by the president? >> i think it's born of necessity. we are at a really fragile point in the history of our country and the history of our democracy. you talked in the opening discussion about the state of our two-party system. in a two-party system, both parties need to have relative health. they need to be healthy for the system to work. i look forward to the day when the republican party is once again a home for people like liz cheney and adam kinzinger. but today, the republican party is in terribly ill health.

and judged by that standard, our democracy is more vulnerable today than it was three years ago. three years ago we would be now two days from january 6th. and two days after those events, republican leaders were repudiating donald trump. kevin mccarthy was talking about his culpability. and you had mitch mcconnell around that time talking about there being remedies, prosecution for someone who engages in this kind of thing. here we are three years later, the republican party is trying to completely reinvent those days and what took place. they have embraced him closer than ever. he is worse than ever. they're describing both the president and republican leaders, like stefanik, those who were arrested on that day as hostages, as political prisoners. well, two days after the actual event, they were not describing those who beat officers and gouged them and bear sprayed

them and had members of congress running for their lives. they weren't describing them as, you know, political prisoners, those who were arrested in that melee. but now they are. in terms of its commitment to democracy, the republican party is way worse than it was on that day. and it's been a clear trajectory. i often look to the canaries in the coal mine. and one of them, for me, was in 2016, not when donald trump was elected, although that was a pretty compelling sign we were in trouble, but in north carolina in the same day a democratic governor was elected. not by saying next time we'll do better, we'll have better messaging or better policies or better candidates, but instead stripping the governor of his responsibilities. that was an ethic that said, it's no longer about democracy. it's no longer about free and fair elections. it's about if you lose, you try to change the rules of the game. or as we would see four years later, you try to overturn the result. >> or democrats are inherently ineligible to hold power and

only republicans can hold power. i mean, that to me, was the lesson out of north carolina, that your enemy, your political enemy, is not somebody who you try to beat in an election and whoever wins get power. your political enemy is not allowed to ever hold power, even if they win. and that's the end. >> yes. yes. if the other side wins, it is inherently illegitimate. >> yeah. >> and so i think of necessity, the president has to make this a big part, a central animating theme of his campaign. and also as you were pointing out and as speaker pelosi pointed out, not in theoretical terms but no concrete terms. what would it mean to our economy to move away from democracy and become something less, some kind of autocratic form of government? it would be a disaster for us economically. it would be disastrous for us on the world stage. it would be a disaster for those in ukraine fighting a russian dictator.

it would be a disaster for our freedoms. we've lost some of our freedoms with a conservative reactionary court. we'll lose more the more we move towards autocracy. i also think one of the sharpest contrasts between joe biden and donald trump goes beyond economic issues, goes beyond even democracy issues, and it's one of just basic decency. i think the biden administration is betting, and i think it's a good bet, the american people want their president to be a decent human being. and you couldn't have a sharper contrast between someone like joe biden, who is a good person, who is empathetic towards the struggles of the american people, who is working to address the needs of the american people and bring down the cost of housing and the cost of energy and make sure they have access to quality health care because he cares about what happens to them, and a donald trump who wills a depression on the country because it helps him politically or strips the country of the resources it

might use to help people with tax cuts for the rich and brags about it to his wealthy supporters, who cares about nothing but himself. there is a very sharp contrast. and i think the american people are good and decent and aren't going to want to be in the hands of an autocrat who doesn't believe in our democracy. >> california congressman adam schiff, sir, it's really good to have you here. it's nice to see you in person. we've got much more ahead tonight. stay with us. stay with us d looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three p's. what are the three p's? the three p's of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54. what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month.

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the latest call came christmas day. they were responding to a 911 call about a shooting inside her home. there had been no shooting inside her home. the call was a hoax. it was designed to provoke a scary and potentially dangerous police response. that same day, christmas day, congresswoman marjorie taylor greene of georgia also reported being target of a similar hoax on one call. and couple days later it was congressman rick scott who had calls to his house for a nonexistent reported shooting. for good measure a bomb threat was called into his office the next morning. two days later it was the secretary of state of maine. that call drew emergency responders to her home, just a day after she announced she was barring donald trump from the

state's ballot because of his role on the attack on congress january 6, 2021. last night at 10:00, police and fire vehicles descended on the washington home of the federal judge who is overseeing trump's january 6th case in d.c. once again, a fake report of a shooting had been called in. nothing was amiss at the judge's home, but it provoked a massive and dangerous police response. it's called swatting. it's calling in fake emergencies to draw an armed police response, hopefully a s.w.a.t team response, to somebody's home. armed police rushing in to what they believe is a very dangerous active shooter situation. it's always scary. it's always risky. it's something that has had

fatal consequences in the past. and we right now are in the midst of a spree of swatting calls to state and federal officials, including judges. we have some breaking news for you tonight. nbc news is now reporting that it is not just the federal judge in trump's federal january 6th case who has been attacked like this in recent days. it is also special counsel jack smith. we can now report jack smith is also the victim of an attempted swatting at his washington area home on christmas day. two law enforcement sources telling nbc news that someone called 911 that day reporting that jack smith had shot his wife at the address where smith lives. local police did dispatch units toward the home. they were called off when deputy u.s. marshals protecting smith and his family told police it was a false alarm. no arrests have been made. a spokesperson for the special counsel's office is declining to comment. but why is this happening and to so many officials in so many

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and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate-lock, so your rate can never go up for any reason. so call now for free information, and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. and it's yours free just for calling, so call now for free information. so, just in the past week we have had a wave of bomb threats, also dozens of bomb threats to jewish institutions, particularly in california, nearly 100 in california alone, but also around the country. we're also seeing an epidemic of swatting calls to federal and state officials, which are 911

calls about non-existent hostage situations or active shooter situations. the calls are designed to provoke an armed police response to a target's home. nbc news reporting as of tonight that this includes a swatting on christmas day of special counsel jack smith, who's prosecuting the federal january 6th case against donald trump. the judge who is hearing that case was also swatted at her own washington area home just last night. welcome to the kind of election year we're apparently going to have this year. why are we having this epidemic? what does it mean? what can be done about it? joining us now is former justice department senior national security official mary mccord. ms. mccord, i'm very glad you could be with us on this topic tonight. >> it's my pleasure. >> what do you make of the pervasiveness of these threats right now, how disruptive, how dangerous they might be.

>> as you know we're already in a heightened environment of threats, online threats, offline threats coming in all sorts of forms. we've really been in this state since 2020 and even before that. and this seems to be the latest epidemic. i'll point, though, too, even march of 2023, less than a year ago, when within one week, dozens off schools across the country were swatted and, you know, causing lockdowns, et cetera. so, it seems to have gone from, sort of, schools to government buildings to synagogues as part of, you know, terrorism after the israel-hamas war broke out, terrorism-type of efforts to try to terrorize and intimidate. and now we're seeing, like you say, a whole episode of attacks on current and former government officials. and i think part of it is to -- i think the motive is often to intimidate the subjects, particularly in the individual cases, where you're calling in hoax reports to -- reports to people's houses like in the case of judge chutkan, jack smith, so many others you mentioned in your earlier statement.

but it is also just to divert resources, law enforcement resources. we know that it costs, in many cases, thousands and thousands of dollars in resources, as mass responses, s.w.a.t teams and others respond to these. this is particularly so when we're talking about responding to bomb threats where you have to clear a building, you have to bring in special teams to clear a building to make sure there really are no bombs. we know in the case of synagogues being swatted that it is deliberately intended to disrupt the services and also causing evacuations and cause resources. that takes away resources from legitimate law enforcement priorities, real crimes being committed. it also is incredibly dangerous because the police are responding to something that they think could be a serious threat. so, they may be coming heavily

armed. they may be coming and immediately seeking entry into a home or to a church or a capitol. people in that home may be frightened. they may be thinking they're having a home invasion. they may pull a gun. as you indicated, some of these have been fatal. we've even had instances of someone suffering a heart attack when police came. so, it's very serious. and in june, the fbi began a nationwide database to collect information. fbi has superior resources often to local officials. and more of the dots need to be connected because often times, sophisticated callers, whether they're domestic or foreign, are able, through technology, to mask their ip addresses, mask their voices, et cetera. it's a significant threat for law enforcement and those who are victims of swatting. >> and clearly one that is a national problem, even though it's often local police who are being called out for these threats. mary mccord, former justice department senior national security official. thank you for your time on this

tonight. scary situation. thanks for your expertise. >> sure. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. shipstation saves us so much time it makes it really easy and seamless pick an order print everything you need slap the label on ito the box and it's ready to go our cost for shipping, were cut in half just like that go to shipstation/tv and get 2 months free

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two things coming up. tomorrow morning, 9:30 a.m. eastern, a federal appeals court in d.c. is going to hear arguments on trump's claims that he is immune from prosecution. in federal courtrooms, there are no cameras, but for a big case like this they're going to release live audio of the hearing while it's happening. we'll have it live here on msnbc starting, again, 9:30 a.m. eastern time tomorrow morning. i will also be back with you here wednesday night this week live at 10:00 p.m. eastern. it's a special night of political coverage timed to the republican debate. i will see you here then. that's going to do it for for now. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. after