it's an independent government. it's not run by the president. the fed chief is appointed by presidents for long-terms so i think you'll start to get into this situation on the campaign trial where one candidate may not say anything about the fed and the other may say wait, you're cutting interest rates heading into an election. that's not fair. >> let's predict who those candidates might be and what they might say. christine, thank you very much. that is going to do it for me today. deadline white house starts right now. hi, everyone. it is 4:00 here in new york. consider it a new stage in what the january 6th select committee called the big rip off. after raising millions of dollars from every day americans off of completely baseless claims of fraud, donald trump is now taking money from his supporters to help him fend off

his mountain of legal troubles. new reporting from "the new york times" revealed the ex president has spent a staggering $50 million of donor money on his legal bills and he has a lot of legal bills to pay. he faces 91 felony counts in four cases. a lawsuit that threatens to take down his family business. not to mention the millions he owes e. jean carroll after losing two lawsuits. from that "new york times" reporting, quote, mr. trump has used funds in his political action committee known as save america to underwrite his legal bills. the account was originally flooded with donations that were collected during the period immediately after the 2020 election. he was making widespread and false claim of voter fraud. with save america's coffers nearly drained last year, mr. trump sought to refill them through a highly unusual transaction. he asked for a refund of $60 million that he had initially transferred to a different group. a pro trump superpac to support

his 2024 campaign. in addition, mr. trump has been directing 10% of donations raised online to save america. meaning ten cents of every dollar he has received from supporters is going to a pac that chiefly funds his lawyers. to give you a sense of just how much $50 million counts for in today's politics. consider this. a "new york times" reports quote, his lone remaining rival in the 2024 republican primary, nikki haley, raised roughly the same amount of money across all her committees in a last year as mr. trump's political accounts spent paying the bills stemming from his various legal defenses including lawyers for witnesses. the funds aren't just going to help trump. they're also being used to help the people who are alleged to have enabled him to commit crimes. once again from the times. mr. trump had also been paying some of the legal fees for aides who have been ensnared as witnesses in the various cases. walt nada, mr. trump's

codefendant in the documents case, is still on his campaign payroll. another codefendant works at mark and that's where we start today with glenn thrush. also joining us, former congressman from florida and nbc political analyst, david jolly. and host of the podcast, joyce vance. he has the right to spend the money he's raised on his legal fees. my question. are his supporters aware of just what it is he's doing? >> well, i don't know if they're explicitly aware, but in general if you look at the polling, i think there's a general sense that wherever he goes, they shall follow. wunl of the things i'd like to point out is there was some consternation among trump supporters when jack smith was announced and he's overseeing two investigations. the mar-a-lago investigation and obviously the january 6

investigation. over the same period of time roughly speaking prorated jack smith has spent between 12 and $13 million on legal fees. that's not including all the security that he's had to pay for because of the threats that he and his staff have been receiving but just in terms of the actual outlay and he's not participating in the georgia case or either of the two civil cases. just in terms of paying a very substantial number of prosecutors and investigators at doj, we're looking at between 12 and 13 million by comparison. >> joyce, all of the reporting i just shared with you, does it raise ethical questions or concerns for you? >> well, it does and it has ever since the january 6th committee included the big rift in their reporting. i think that there are a couple of possible venues where this could raise eyebrows. one is obviously the justice department. to the point of glenn's

reporting, we don't know what people making these donations new and whether there might be some form of a fraud case, but certainly from the original january 6th fund raising, that statute of limitations, which is five years, hasn't yet run. it's possible someone at doj is still looking at that and that this could get pushed into that mix. and then there's of course the federal elections commission that oversees the propriety of donations and where there are instances of problems that come up, reports are made to them and they investigate using bipartisan committee staff. in november where allegations has been raised about impropriety, one of the commissioners released a report and she made the point that the fec is really at an internal bypass where they don't seem to be able to move on any of these issues. she pointed out that there had opinion 28 complaints involving the former president, his

family, pacts related to him where the bipartisan committee staff wanted to investigate and not a single republicanvoted to move any of those investigations forward. that would seem to foreclose that as an option. >> david, i want to play some of what the january 6th committee uncovered about trump's fund raising efforts. >> the claims that the election was stolen were so successful, president trump and his allies raised $250 million. nearly $100 million in the first week after the election. on november 9th, 2020, president trump created a separate entity called the save america pact. most of the money raised went to this newly created pac. the select committee discovered the save america pac made millions of contributions to pro trump organizations including $1 million to trump chief of staff mark meadows'

charitable foundation. 1 million to the america first policy institute. $204,857 to the trump hotel collection and over $500 million to the company that ran president trump's january 6th rally on the ellipse. the evidence developed by the select committee highlights how the trump campaign aggressively pushed false election claims to fund raise telling supporters it would be use to fight voter fraud that did not exist. the e-mails continued through january 6th. even as president trump spoke on the ellipse. 30 minutes after the last fund raising e-mail was sent, the capitol was breached. >> there's a certain circularity here. he fund raised off the big lie. now some of those funds are going towards helping him avoid accountability for the insurrection he fomented over that same lie.

>> you're exactly right. there's two sides to this. do donors have an awareness their finds might be used for his legal expenses or other expenses? i think maybe they do at this point. we focus on donald trump kind of inflating the courtroom and the campaign trail into one enterprise. i think the donors do as well. because every court case in a donor's eyes is about the deep state out to to get donald trump and the voters as well. so even with the fine print disclosures, it is certainly historically odd. not as concerned about a fraud on the donor based on the disclosures and the legal expenses. i'm far more curious about what an audit of the $50 million in legal expenses and an audit of his other expenses would actually turn out. because just focus on the legal expenses first. donald trump hates to pay his lawyers. and even somebody with more lawsuits than alligators in a

pond right now, $50 million in legal fees is a lot and i would be curious just what is being attributed to legal fees when he makes those filings but that's just the tip of the iceberg. what about everything else that the receipts are being used on. i think the specting side of the column is probably going to be far more controversial than the solicitation of donations. >> glenn, david raised the possibility of an audit. your eyes lit up. i imagine you have as many if not more questions than david does. >> i think david hit the nail on the head. you're dealing with a tremendous amount of money. now, look. he does have significant expenses. and a lot of as we know, at least in the prior three years, a lot of the really blue chip attorneys in d.c. and new york turned trump down so he's had to pay a bit of a premium for getting people. but that is absolutely the case. this is just an inor din nant

amount of cash. trump boasts about the art of the deal and being able to get the best possible deal out of this. this is an exorbitant number and i think david is right. and to joyce's point, the sec has not functionally existed as a watchdog for essentially a decade at this point in time. citizens united gutted campaign finance law. so much of this is about this wild west environment we operate in and as everyone knows by now, when you have a road without guardrails, trump takes advantage of that situation. >> how complex is it that trump is paying legal fees of witnesses of codefendants? where does that leave doj? >> that's a really interesting question. there was a proceeding down in

florida called a garcia hearing, which addressed this issue with walt nauta and the representation of one of the lawyers, stan woodward, who i believe is also being paid through some of the trump entities who is representing several clients including some people who are being interviewed about other clients. so there is a tremendous amount of entanglement here. at the moment, the judge was letting things proceed as they were going, but i think as this gets untangled and more information comes to the floor, i think more and more questions are going to be raised. >> joyce, if you were prosecutors in these cases, how are you dealing with this entanglement? >> right. the entanglement is important and before the garcia hearing was held in florida, there was a garcia hearing held in washington, d.c. because there was grant jury work going on up there.

it was in d.c. that the judge made disclosures to another one of the potential codefendants in that case and that individual decided to obtain separate independent counsel and has ended up cooperating. so judge canon's ruling that it was okay for these lawyers to be paid for and to represent multiple defendants has raised some eyebrows and that's not to say that it's inappropriate for someone else even a codefendant to pay legal fees. the issue is whether the lawyer regardless of who is paying for their services is providing competent, independent, careful representation that effectuates the best interest of a particular defendant. not of the person who's paying for them. that's the entanglement that glenn is referring to. and here, although you can't take an appeal on this pretrial, it's a disturbing situation. >> we saw when someone like cassidy hutchison switched attorneys and teams how that then affected the nature of what

she was willing to share. david jolly, nikki haley, she posted about this story and she said quote, another reason donald trump won't debate me. his pac spent $50 million in campaign dollars on his legal fees. can't beat joe biden if he's spending all his time and money on court cases and chaos. i am struck, of course, by the vagueness of that attack on trump. it's not about why he was indicted. what that says about him. she's saying it's merely a distraction. >> more impressed if nikki haley was willing to debate trump on the impact of dobbs and the roe overturning of roe v. wade or if she was willing to debate him on his role on january 6th or whether or not she thinks that the prisoners are criminally convicted convicts as opposed to just hostages like donald trump says. she sees an opening with this, but picks lightweight issues and

then she equivocates like she does on matters of even more substance. she is trying to find her footing still now 13 months into this race. i think it's a missed opportunity. probably also why she's 30 points behind. >> joyce, i want to turn to some other news around the ex-president. he posted last night he's interviewing law firms to handle his appeal in the carroll defamation suit. why would he be one happy with habba's work? >> it's not unusual to use a different appellate lawyer than the lawyer you use at trial. they are very different skill sets. i headed the appellate decision and constantly, we had the need to, i don't want to say throw under the bus, but perhaps to gently give up the trial lawyers for errors they had made in order to win our case on appeal. it's tough to do that when you're the trial lawyer. so you know, that doesn't seem particularly out of bounds to me. but this was a middle of the

night tweet. what three, 4:00. it seemed to be forefront on the president's mind. he is someone who has struggled to get lawyers but he has an excellent appellate lawyer. chris keys, the former solicitor general. someone who could certainly handle an appeal like this and i think it's interesting to see that he's talking about turning to a brand-new lawyer perhaps. >> well, glenn, it is complicated to be a lawyer to donald trump, no? >> yes. i keep forgetting what the acronym is. lawyers who need lawyers. used to be the thing. now it's lawyers who need investment bankers, i guess. but to joyce's point, keys is considered to be an exceptional appellate lawyer. now, obviously, he's got his hands full with other cases but one would question why it is that trump would be moving

outside of that orbit. also, what are the issues upon which he's going to base this appeal? i think that still remains fundamentally unclear. as we've sort of tiptoed around, i don't think miss habba's conduct in his defense was necessarily that well received. so i think there are i think whoever does take this is going to quite likely be fairly critical of her performance. and the other thing i have to say is you know, again, we're dealing with this kind of odd phenomenon where his reality showing this. right? he could go and interview and talk to appellate lawyers very quietly, but he decides in the middle of the night to tell the world he's going to do so. so i'm sure part of this was about maintaining slight on himself. he always has that second agenda of wanting to be sort of omnipresent. i think that's something, that's a factor a lot of people don't necessarily take into account when they're looking at his

actions. his need to be beyond any political or legal imperative to simply be the center of attention at any given moment. >> glenn, the acronym you could not think of was maga, making attorneys get attorneys. joyce, real quick, your sense of where we are waiting on this immunity ruling? >> right. i think it could be at any point in time now. the longer it lags obviously the more concerned we are. but this is three judges. they have very different approaches in oral argument. they're likely trying to harmonize those and see if it's possible to have a unanimous ruling where they all agree on the same theory of the case. otherwise, they could be taking some time to write concurrences if they have different paths to get there. so i think the bottom line on this is unfortunately that we'll have to wait and see. >> patience is a virtue that i am still working on. glenn thrush, thank you so much for spending time with us. david and joyce, with your sticking with me.

when we come back, to one of donald trump's criminal cases we've spent less time on. only because it should be one of the most straightforward ones. the mar-a-lago documents case. but today, a closed door hearing between jack smith and the judge there. we'll talk about that and why joyce vance calls it a particularly troubling meeting. plus, the impeachment of the homeland security secretary set to move to a full house vote. the hypocrisy of it happening the same time congress is trying to address the issues republicans are shouting about. and something no family wants to experience. a loved one who's already sacrificed so much for their country. we'll show you a moment that shows us what presidential leadership should look like. all this and more when deadline white house continues after this. and more when deadline white house continues after this

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special counsel jack smith's team and the judge overseeing the mar-a-lago documents case held a closed door meeting today that could have significant consequences for the trial. the meeting in which the ex-president and his lawyers were prohibited from attending is to discuss which classified materials will be shared with the defense. in a motion filed in december, trump's lawyers said quote -- in sealed court filings made by smith's office. while we won't learn much from inside today's meeting, we'll learn fairly quickly if cannon rules in his favor. a date which has been in doubt for some time now thanks to efforts to slow off this case by

judge cannon. our friend, joyce vance, writes that the problem with judge cannon's handling of the case quote has been the delay in which she has indulges trump with in what should have been a fairly straightforward case. joining me now, lisa rubin. how much does judge cannon's willingless to slow walk this case worry you. >> a lot because the plead wrgs filed last december. judge cannon could have held a prompt hearing and then if there was a need for appeal, the circuit showed us they can handle those matters. instead, she's holding preliminary meetings this week. the hearing on which of these classified materials might be excluded from trial and which have to be included won't happen until mid february. at that point, the march trial date or the may trial date really does get called into

question. >> help me understand what this meeting was about today. why it was happening. >> joyce has written more persuasively about this than anybody else but my understanding is under section four of the classified information procedures act, the government has the right to go to the judge and say we have classified information that's relevant to the case and relevant to the prosecution. but it's so classified not even the defendants should see it. we're dealing not only with former president trump as a defendant, but two others who have never been within the sphere of knowledge. that's de la vieira and nauta. it's to say to cannon, hey, you can see this, we can see this. now you should understand why we don't want them to see it. >> how do you make that decision as a judge? >> i don't know. i think part of it has to be you trust the government that if a particular piece of information has a certain classification

status, that it's not just on a need to know basis. for example, the government in its papers here, they said certain of these materials had such a classification status that people would have to have a level above tssci, which is top secret conpartmentalized information. one of the utmost levels of security. so we know this stuff is not just every day top secret material. what it is, we don't know. >> joyce, any sense of what we could expect to come out of today's meeting? >> right. so these issues are less difficult than they might be in a case that involved the nature of the classified information. this case is about hanging on to documents that you weren't entitled to have regardless of what the nature of the classified material they contained was. so this should have been a straightforward situation where jack smith said judge, here are the items that we believe are

too deeply classified to be included and we'd like to delete this material or submit a nonclassified summary. all of these proceedings are authorized and fairly routinely used in this sort of a case. and so it seems to me that judge cannon should follow that usual path forward. where we will see fireworks is if she does not. if she tries to let the trump lawyers, for instance, look at this, then there will undoubtedly be an appeal and of course, the real ball game is what gets put into trial in a courtroom ultimately. >> just to break this down again. the meeting today, it's a precursor to hearings scheduled in february to deal with section four of the classified information procedures act and you write this about those hearings, quote, instead of proceeding promptly to get to the point where she could rule on the section four motions, she has permitted the matter to drag on. doj filed its section four motions on december 6th and trump and his codefendants

responded that same day. doj filed its opposition on december 20th. instead of scheduled a prompt hearing, judge cannon set it for eight weeks. she offered no reason for that time to elapse. there was nothing on the calendar in this case that could have permitted her from doing so. she could have dealt with this weeks ago as i understand it. why didn't she, joyce? >> this is the eternal question we've had with judge cannon. these are the kinds of issues that go first. the statute itself makes provision for these issues to be decided speedily. what happens every time you bring a case like this is that the defendant engages in what's called gray mail. they try to convince the government to dismiss some of all of the charges against them by threatening to expose the government's secrets if the case moves forward. so pretty easy to understand why

those proceedings should go quickly. why the statute expressley permits the government to take an immediate appeal without waiting until later on and the fact that she has not gotten on board with that program is very disturbing in this case. >> this follows a pattern. we just walked through what happened from december into january in november, judge cannon pushed back several major deadlines. earlier this month, she rejected jack smith's attempt to force trump to decide if he plans to use advice of counsel defense. what does it tell you when you look at it holistically, the decisions, the choices that judge cannon is making? >> let's start with the fact the hearings were scheduled to be in october. so between october and mid february, that is proof positive of how much time has been wasted by the elongation of this trial schedule. but what it also tells me is that judge cannon has made a series of sort of minor

technical incremental decisions that are difficult for people like us to report and say conclusively that her intent is to postpone the trial, but holistically, that is what it seems she's aiming to do. it's like lucy and the football eight times over. every time the government thinks they're getting a little bit closer to trial and keeping on schedule, she just whisked away that football only to have it happen again and again. i can't see how judge cannon tries this case on may 20th. much less tries it before the election in a way that wouldn't allow donald trump to scream and yell about election interference and i think joyce and other legal experts that i consult and trust would say the same. >> that puts the timeline into stark relief. lisa, joyce, thank you both so much. after the break, it makes no sense. republicans in congress, they are moving forward in their effort to impeach a member of president biden's cabinet for the situation at the u.s. mexico border. while at the very same time,

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there's not a law scholar to cite this -- to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. they are trying to impeach secretary mayorkas for failing to secure the border while he's negotiating a bipartisan deal in the senate designed to secure and address the issues at the border. >> congressman golden identifying a tangled mess. even as they send articles of impeachment for secretary mayorkas on border issues to the full house, with the other, they're preparing to torpedo a bipartisan border solution because donald trump told them to. look at the way speaker johnson contradicted himself in the course of just a few moments. >> judging by his comments, clearly wants to campaign on this issue. have you spoken to him about the

senate proposal? are you supply trying to kill this to help him on the campaign? >> no, manu, that's absurd. we have a responsibility here to do our duty. it's to do right to protect the people. the first and most important job of the federal government is to protect its citizens. i have talked to former president trump about this issue at length and he understands that. he understands that we have a responsibility to do here. the president, president trump, wants to secure the country. >> bravo to whoever put together that edit. joining our conversation, professor of politics and journalism at morgan state university and host of the podcast, a word, dr. david johnson joins us. here's the thing. they tell on themselves all the time, but normally it requires piecing together moments that have happened over the course of weeks. in this case, the moments are happening side by side. >> this is literally the "spongebob" 20 seconds later. like, the guy is obviously

lying. here's the thing. it's common sense, right? like donald trump doesn't have much to run on other than i'm a criminal, i tried to take over the country, i have a series of harassment charges that i keep losing. so immigration is an actual policy issue for republicans to run on and they can only run if they stop it from being solved. joe biden doesn't have a magical solution to what's happening at the border but the republicans have no incentive and since they have no practice in actually governing over the last ten years, it's not surprising to see johnson stumbling over the fact we want to get this fix, we don't. >> it's almost they reverted to a place where they were thinking about the election in a classical way saying we're going to have to go before voters, here's a policy problem for which we offered a solution. then donald trump swept in and said no, no, these are not normal times, friends. we're not doing that. we actually need a problem to run on. we need to maintain it as a

problem. that's in my best interest and thus in yours. >> i think that's be the ethos of republicans for decades. and my history runs deep here. i don't think donald trump convinced house republicans to obstruct. i think donald trump is taking a victory lap. donald trump likes to jump out in front of the parade and claim he's the grand marshall. if immigration and border security reform was up to joe biden and senate republicans, forget democrats for a minute. a deal would get done. it is house republicans who are going to obstruct. they have never had an interest in solving this issue because then they can't run on xenophobia. you have so many timid republicans now that actually are willing to govern. that coalition might not be there with democrats. the real curiosity i have, the real campaign curiosity i have is by highlighting their

inaction, they have handed this issue back to joe biden. >> yep. >> is joe biden willing to spend money and message how strong he was willing to be on immigration and republicans stood in the way or they go into focus on other priorities in the biden administration and do republicans get away with the hoodwink to the american people. >> i think that is exact will right. especially because he was willing to looking for the proper words, he was willing to rangel some members of his own party with that bill to have that position. after trump was impeached the first time for holding up aid to ukraine, some republicans the proceedings would open a pandora's box. this is from 2019. one of those republicans. guess who. >> you have to think about this a few years down the road. what happens, jim, when there's a democrat in the oval office and a republican majority the house? the republican base around the country will begin to demand impeachment as soon as that

president makes a decision or a policy position or a statement that they don't like because the bar has now been set so low. they have cheapened impeachment as the president said. that's a great concern for the republic and it should not be lost in all these discussions today. >> dr. johnson, make it make sense. >> look, there's no bar so low that republicans can't limbo under it. they will find a way, even if they have to put wheels under their backs. >> thank you for that visual. >> thank you. you can't find a way to vote to impeach donald trump who tried to take over the country in a violent coup, but you can put together the votes to try to impeach the secretary mayorkas for what? not following through the policies you don't want to get fixed? impeachment shouldn't be used for any sort of ridiculous reason, but also it shows they don't care about what impeachment actually entails because even if you were to get rid of mayorkas, that wouldn't solve the problem at the border.

>> that is exactly right. that it does have to be solved by congress, david jolly. and one of the tricks that republicans are pulling now is trying to insist that the president could somehow fix what is happening at the u.s. mexico border with the stroke of a pen. here's speaker johnson. this is from today. >> the president can put a stop to this. president biden and secretary mayorkas have designed this catastrophe and now rather than accept any responsibility for what they've clearly done, president biden wants to somehow shift the blame to congress for his administration's catastrophe by design. it's absolutely laughable. >> let's do a quick fact check here, which was a lot of the infrastructure gaps we're seeing now were structured under the trump administration. the last time there was a serious conversation about immigration reform was in 2006. and all of this ignores the need

of people who are coming from central america and the push factors making this moment particularly volatile. mike johnson is just passing the buck. he's not talking about the fact that the real solution lies in congress. >> let's add one more stick on the fire. speaker johnson also ignores that joe biden has been begging congress for more money for border security and congress can't pass an annual budget bill and get that money they want to be spent at the border. look, since we're in a whiplash world of all these clips, i would remind you it was ten years ago when obama said i'm going to do things with a pen and a phone because congress refuses to act and now, republican speaker johnson is saying i wish joe biden would do something with a pen and a phone. here's the sad reality for republicans in all of this. by focusing on this issue, they are going to highlight their inaction and here's the really sad thing for republicans.

impeaching secretary mayorkas does nothing politically. nobody cares, republicans, if you impeach the dhs secretary. nobody cares unless you're watching fox news. so you're wasting time on impeachment. you're doing nothing to secure the border. get ready for the whiplash again. it's going to come back again on republicans. >> johnson and jolly, they are sticking with me. up next, a rare moment on capitol hill today where the senators all agreed on something. making the internet a safer place for our children. that story just ahead. place for our children that story just ahead.

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with the touch of your finger, it become a back alley where the lives of your children are damaged and destroyed. these apps have changed the way we live, work, and play. >> mr. zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, i know you don't mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands. you have a product, you have a product that's killing people. >> a rare moment of bipartisanship on capitol hill as the ceos of five of the largest social media companies testified in front of the senate judiciary committee as congress looks into tackling the lack of regulation in the industry. the dramatic hearing included

countless incidents where people have been harmed or died in part for the lack of guardrails on certain social media platforms. many of whom are children. the leaders of snapchat, tiktok, x, discord and meta testified. mark zuckerberg's ceo offering up an apology to family members of victims in attendance where he said in part, i'm sorry for everything you have all been through. no one should go through the things that your families have suffered. we are back with jason. obviously david and i, we watched this. as parents. i think of you watching it as someone who works with young people, a profess or. >> the number of students i've had who said they had to get rid of instagram because their therapist told them to. it was depressing. they were tired of seeing these

images. i find these hearings to be annoying in a way because it's so disinous. talking to them, all you're going to have is mark zuckerberg sit up there and say hey, i'm really sorry. he said the same thing about cambridge analytica. you can't expect mcdonald's to make their hamburgers healthier. you just have to pass laws that say you can't put swine inside beef. you've got to pass a law. all the sad parents who have suffered because of the lack of regulation on these websites, it's up to congress to do something and not just insulting a bunch of tech ceos. >> i think we watch these hearings and wonder what is possible to change. especially when it comes to this specific industry and regulation as it results, relates to these social media companies. >> i think the whole world has seen how social media has transformed the way we live our daily lives and that is true for

young kids without the judgment or ability to exercise control and particularly when they become the subject of a predator. that was much of the hearing today is what are you doing to ensure that sexual predators for instance or people interested in committing violence against young people are not able to do it. and so you know, in many ways, social media has become a mirror to ourselves. we get to see all of society's faye values. we see it in front of our faces but so do 12-year-old kids. a lot of the conversation was around how can we put stricter parental controls on access. i have to say this. it just makes my blood boil a little bit. i have a bit of a reaction to lindsey graham and josh hawley. save me your speeches. here when we see teenage violence or self-harm as a

result of social media, josh hawley and lindsey graham want to blame social media platforms and access to social media. but when there's a school shooting or there's youth violence related to a gun, it's never the gun manufacturer or the access to gun. it's just a sick individual that does that. so when josh hawley wants to attack tech execs and show some type of empathy towards these parents, save it, josh hawley. if you think social media companies have blood on their hands, what about gun manufacturers anned parents who today, but a little bit of hypocrisy and irony coming from senate republicans right now. >> i had the same visceral response that david jolly had, of course i would layer onto everything that you have already offered the fact that these are the same platforms that allow disinformation to run rampant during the past election. >> yes, yes. i think it's interesting that we didn't really see much like youtube, which is there's a recent story talking about the fact that you now have ai

programs with fake politicians selling things that aren't true, saying policy that isn't true. youtube's not doing anything about it. these politicians oftentimes don't care, certainly on the right, about disinformation when it works in their favor. what about the violence perpetuated on x against journalists, activists, organizers, the number of people who have been harassed. they don't care when the people being attacked on social media are folks they don't like. that's why i find this to be disingenuous. in the '90s, we were all kids, there were programs that were like we're going to block you from cinemax, it never worked. you're going to have to come up to something better. kids are smart. there's no internal way you can figure out how to regulate it. >> you and i were living very different lives in the '90s. democracy, number one issue for voters 24% in this new poll by a

large margin for the top issue for democrats, 39% compared to 12% of republicans. i mean, you can see a clear consensus on the need to regulate big tech. why can't congress find this type of consensus when it comes to something equally foundational, if not more foundational like our democracy? >> yeah, so look, the internet and social media platforms should remain largely unregulated. they're not considered a utility. republicans and democrats have taken that position for a long time. the thing you heard, though, among republicans and democrats today is if we ramp up the liability, if we ramp up the penalties for social media companies who either know or should have known that there was criminality on their platform and did not do enough, perhaps if it cost them a lot of money, they'll do more. it's kind of the e. jean carroll principle. perhaps if we hit donald trump with an $80 million judgment he'll shut up. that is likely where the senate is going with this.

i think there would be broad bipartisan support and support from voters. this wraps into a very volatile november election, but on this issue, one that impacts the lives of young people, parents and those without children alike understand that. >> jason johnson, david jolly, thank you both so much for spending some time with us. up next, donald trump trying for a tough endorsement today. we're going to bring you that story next. story next insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. children are the greatest joy and our best hope for a better future. friends, they are the future. but did you know that millions of kids right here in our own backyard are facing hunger every day without healthy food it's harder to grow, to thrive, to feel their best.

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former president trump met today with teamsters leadership as he courts unions, hoping to

peel working class voters off from president biden. teamsters president, shanna mendiola biden teamsters president, shanna mendiola his track record thus far has been less than promising with president biden already picking up high profile union endorsements like the uaw's and in classic trump fashion he immediately lashed out calling uaw president shawn fain a, quote, dope. trump's meeting have drawn criticism from other teamsters with one executive board member writer a letter to o'brien calling trump a known union buster, scab and insurrectionist. the biden campaign said he will be meeting with the teamsters but did not provide a date. we will be following all of that. when we come back, a deeply moving moment from president joe biden, an unfortunate part of his job as commander in chief of this country, i'm going to it to you next. we'll be right back. we'll be right back.

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there are three families that are going through the worst possible grief right now, and let me tell you something, we talked about dover, that's a tough day. that is a tough day. they killed american soldiers, and i'd leave it at that. >> hi again, everyone, it is 5:00 here in new york. i'm alicia menendez in for nicolle wallace. unimaginable grief being felt by the families of three u.s. service members who were killed this weekend by a drone strike at a base in northeast jordan. the biden administration strategizes an appropriate response without escalating conflict in the region, these mark the first american deaths after months of strikes by iranian-backed militant groups since the terror attack on october 7th. 40 u.s. troops were injured and the three killed were from georgia. 46-year-old sergeant william rivers, 24-year-old specialist kennedy sanders, and 23-year-old specialist breonna moffett.

today we got a deeply personal glimpse into this horrible situation provided by "the atlanta journal-constitution." take a look at the parents of sergeant kennedy sanders receiving a phone call from the nation's commander in chief. >> good morning, mr. president. >> shawn, i wish i didn't have to make this call. i know, you know, everybody- i know there's nothing anybody can say or do to ease the pain. i've been there. >> yes, sir, we understand. >> i just want you to know that i -- you're in my prayers and my heart. i know you don't want the -- return the body, but with your permission, i'd like to be there with you if that's okay. >> we would be honored. >> we would love for you to be there. >> you know, and by the way,

we're promoting her posthumously to sergeant. >> oh, wow, that is the best news i've heard today, thank you so much. you don't know how much that means to us. >> well, i tell you what, it means a lot to me. my son spent a year in iraq. that's how i lost him, and i, you know -- 1%, 1% of all these kids are the ones that -- take care of 99% of us. look, i know, i really do know i got one of those phone calls telling me my wife and daughter were dead when a tractor-trailer hit them when i was a young senator and my son beau, he was living near a burn pit in baghdad, came down with stage 4 g glioblastoma, tumor, and lost him too, but, you know, it's --

>> yes, sir, we know that you can definitely feel our pain. >> sergeant sanders, gosh, the picture i'm looking at, she had such a beautiful smile god love her. >> thank you. thank you, mr. president. >> she did, she absolutely did light up every room she was in. >> that's pretty clear from looking at her. well, as my grandfather would say by the grace of god, the goodwill and the creek not rise, i'll see you on friday. >> we are very thankful for your thoughts, prayers, and concerns and everything you're doing to protect our veterans. we trust whatever decision you make going forward, we trust that it will be the best interest of our country. thank you for everything that you're doing. >> thank you, keep me in your prayers. i pray every day i make the right decisions. >> yes, sir, we definitely will. >> all right, well, i will see you friday. >> as you heard the president allude to there, he will attend the dignified transfer of the

slain soldiers bodies in dover, delaware, on friday, and that is where we start this hour with host of the independent americans podcast, paul rieckhoff. joining us the ceo -- and writer at large for the bulwark and msnbc political analyst, tim miller. paul, no parent wants to receive that call. talk to me about what we watched, the importance of the way that president biden comported himself on that call. >> what that family is experiencing is unimaginable, but joe biden's one of the rare people that can kind of imagine it. you know, he's at his best when the moments are at their darkest. he's been a consoler in chief for this country since before he was president, but he's also the only commander in chief we've had since 9/11 that had a child in combat. beau was in combat. he knows what it's like to watch the news and fear the worst, and he knows what it's like to fear that call, so i think in this very harsh and horrible moment,

he can connect with them in a personal way that no president has done since 9/11. and you can see that on the faces of the family, they know he knows what it's like, and that's incredibly powerful. >> and he also put context, right? the idea of 1% that protects the 99% of us. >> yeah, and that's what it's been for over 20 years. it's been a small group of people continuing to sacrifice over and over again, and now it's going to beg the difficult policy question, which is why were they killed? what happens next? what's going to be the response? and that's going to be an even more difficult task. it's forced upon him that she's got to have a conversation with the american people, maybe in a more strategic way about iran. how is iran involved and how are we going to hope to achieve some justice for that family and others? >> there is the duality of needing to be with these families in their moments of pain and grief and also be looking forward and having that more robust policy conversation. first i want you, alison to talk us through what it is that is going to happen at dover on friday. >> well, the bodies will be

coming back in they call them coffins, but cases, they're metal cases with a flag draped over them, as you've seen in pictures before. it sounds like that family doesn't want the press present, and frankly, i think it bodes well of the president that he wants to be there regardless something i can speak to personal experience about, what will be headed to dover after the bodies arrive on friday is all their personal belongings. there was somebody on the ground who for each of those service members had to go into their living quarters and pack up all of their belongings within 24 hours afterwards, so this not only impacts a family what is experiencing unimaginable loss right now, but also service members who still have to continue the mission on the ground, regardless of the fact that this just happened to them. in addition to a community that is probably feeling pain alongside these service members because, unlike active duty

units, this reserve unit, many reserve units are like families, and so all three of these service members are from georgia, skpo there's a community here that's hurting here too. >> we often talk allison about morale in the armed service, the way in which it has suffered in the past few years, i wonder having the president be there in dover witnessing that call, having someone who is willing to stand with the families in their grief, to your point, there is what it means for the family. there is what it means for the community that surrounds that family, and then there is the bigger question of what it means to the institution itself. >> well, he is the commander in chief. he -- at the end of the day, the buck stops with him, and the decisions to have those troops in harm's way are his, and so i think it's very important to see a compassionate president in ooh

moment like this. it should be their worst day as president when something like this happens. i think that is the way president biden is responding in this moment. as paul mentioned we're going to have a lot to navigate from a foreign policy perspective and national security perspective from this moment on. for right now we should all just be focused on the families, and i'm glad that that's where our president and some of our elected leaders are focused right now, exactly the right thing that they need to be doing and the way that they respond also sends a message to people who might raise their hand and want to serve despite all of this, right? at least to know that we will have their backs and their families' backs should the worst thing imaginable happen. >> i mean, to that point, tim, this should be the standard. this should be what we are accustomed to. this should be what we expect, and yet in the past several years, we have seen different behavior, right? and so i think that is part of the reason that that visual,

that that audio becomes so additionally resonant, tim, in this moment. >> for sure. and as one of the 99% before i go off on the former guy, i do want to send my love and thanks to the family of sergeant sanders and the others that died and a tough watch. just so young and it is -- i am grateful that president biden is in there. this is something that is -- that i think we can trust his judgment on, both on what to do going forward, but also in how to handle these situations with compassion. i did an interview over the weekend with fred guttenberg whose daughter died at parkland. he talked about how president biden then as just a private citizen in 2018 after he'd left the vice presidency before he started running again called him and other parents, survivors of that shooting. this is just who he is that he's able to handle that. that is -- as painful as this is, that is refreshing, especially in comparison to donald trump who's a

narcissistic sociopathic and who was completely incapable of handling these kind of situations, unless people were praising -- unless the bereaved were praising him, because he can say nice things to people that say nice things to him. it doesn't really work the other way. there was famously the situation with the soldier in florida where, you know, he talked about -- i forget the exact quote, something to the effect he knew what he was getting into or something. >> yeah, i first met joe biden over 20 years ago when he was a senator, and we knew he cared. i spent a day at arlington with then vice president biden and a group of other people and i remember having a conversation

with him and jill biden. they get it. they understand it. they've been there. they've been there for a long time. i think you can criticize president biden in a lot of ways, but he's a good man. anyone who's been around him in a room, especially in the difficult situations, understand he's a man of character. that is what sets him apart from his competition in this presidential race, and i think it's one of his most important attributes and one of america's most important attributes. he represents the best of us when he's compassionate and shows his integrity and when he really cares. >> you alluded to the decisions that are forthcoming for this administration, and i wonder if the stakes being as high as they are, if it crystallizes in the eyes of service members, of their families, we often think about the president of the united states in his legislative capacity as overseeing. when you think about specifically the role of commander in chief, i have to imagine that moments like this just make it that much sharper.

>> i hope so. i mean, it's a clear differentiator. i mean, you need a commander in chief who has character, who has integrity, who cares about people, who has some strategic vision, who can bring people together, not a national security threat that's an egomaniac and a threat to the global security. it's a very clear contrast here, and maybe people will come back to that in this moment, and i think they should. i think especially independent voters are looking for character and stability. these are the type of moments that can influence, a couple hundred, a couple thousand people. it may go one way towards biden when they were thinking about going another direction when november comes. >> that word there, stability, is not something that can be taken for granted. >> of course, especially as it relates to, you know, our military. we need stability from our political leadership. i mean, i think this program covered a lot how the military promotion holds in the senate caused such instability with the united states military and, like

we don't need issues like that, and we also don't need stability coming out of the white house. we need clear, calm headed leadership. i mean, i don't have to tell your viewers this, but we are in very uncertain times, and so we should have the type of leadership that can keep us calm as we, you know, navigate the rocky road ahead. >> right, tim, you layer into this former president trump reportedly wanting to invoke the insurrection act, which would enable him to use the military on his own people. that is a very different view of the purpose and role of the u.s. military. >> absolutely. our ability, our readiness to be able to respond to situations abroad, if we find ourselves in an internal war and a constitutional crisis here at home, i mean, this is obvious. there's a situation in ukraine and russia where trump has all but said he essentially has

sided with putin, and the other republicans are preventing us from providing aid to ukraine. as you look at the middle east, you know, you can't have the bandwidth to be able to help with security and stability throughout the world. obviously, you know, it was not a -- we can't help with security and stability throughout the world if we have instability and insecurity in the white house and that's what we're staring down the barrel of. >> alison, the parents of breonna moffett, her mother is a veteran herself. she spoke about women in the military. take a listen. >> we want to see women in the military because the one thing about me, i've never liked when people walk up to us, my husband and i, and they always just assume that it was my husband. >> yep. >> women can serve in the military too. we can have power just as much

as men can have power. we can be just as strong as men. we can do the same thing. >> yeah. >> and so just know that we're serious. we can serve as well. >> we're all the same, period. >> allison, what a multigenerational legacy right there and what a message to share in a moment of grief, right? the need for women in the u.s. military. >> yes, i'm glad it came up as a part of conversation that day. you know, that is effectively part of my life's work is helping us change the way we see america's veterans. you know, i don't know if you read the background on some of the fallen, but not only is the mom and the daughter serving but the daughter's serving multiple deployments as well, risking their lives and putting like so much of their family has served and sacrificed in a way that many, many americans haven't.

i think it's great that she was willing to address that at such a somber moment, but it is worth noting that two out of the three fallen were women service members. so we've come a long way. >> such a solemn moment indeed. alison jazz low, tim miller, thank you both so much for getting us started. when we return, john bolton has a new warning about the possibility of a second trump presidency. why bolton says dictators can't wait for trump 2.0. that is next. plus, inside the disgraced ex-president's attempt to steal the 2020 election by strong arming georgia officials to, quote, find the votes he'd need to win. the authors of a brand new book will be our guest. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. stay with us. k break. stay with us how many people did you tell? only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: ♪ liberty. ♪ with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place,

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nchs putin says very nice things about me. i think that's very nice. president xi is a terrific guy. i like being with him a lot. and he's a very special person. putin declares a big portion of the ukraine -- of ukraine. putin declares it as independent. i said how smart is that? we're like a rocket ship, like a rocket ship sent by kim jong-un. he's not so fond of this administration, but he's fond of me, and we had a very good relationship. >> valentine's day coming up, find someone who looks at you like donald trump looks at, well, any authoritarian leader. trump's love of dictators is no secret, and he claims they love him too. you heard him in that last clip there as part of his case for why he should be elected to a second term.

he might be mistaken about just why they love him so much. here's john bolton his former national security adviser on why dictators have praised trump so much. >> i don't think they really are friendly with donald trump. i think they think, xi jinping and vladimir putin, kim jong-un and others, they think he's a laughing fool, and they're fully prepared to take advantage of him. trump's self-absorption makes it impossible for him to understand that. >> if you weren't already terrified about the implications of a second trump term n a new book bolton cautioning, quote, in no arena of american affairs has the trump aberration been manufacture destructive than in national security. his short attention span except for personal advantage renders coherent foreign policy almost unattainable. i believed before becoming national security adviser that the gravity of trump's international policy responsibilities would discipline even him. i was obviously wrong. if his first four years were bad, a second four will be worse. joining our conversation, senior

correspondent at vox and author of "the agenda, how a republican supreme court is reshaping america," paul is also here with us. to say he was wrong is a little bit of an understatement there, paul. let's go to the caution about a second term. pretty alarming stuff. >> yes, i mean, president mayhem 2.0 is alarming, especially given the state of affairs in the world that we just covered and you cover every single week. trump is the unusual one national security threat for america. i think we've been talking about it on this show for years. insiders are recognizing it. i also think america's starting to recognize it. the stakes are different this time. i think new hampshire is a bit of a caution for trump. you saw independents in particular leave him and go to nikki haley. i think that will reflect in the general election in november as well when independents look at this global landscape, and they say we need stability. we need a calm head. we need someone who's not reckless and potentially collaborating with dictators. i may not like biden, but he's better than that. i think this is starting to add

up on him, and i think it's going to hurt him in the general significantly. >> especially because you've got to listen to trump in his own words to hear what it is he plans to do, john bolton points out that trump is focused on dismantling the administrative state or the career federal employees, trump believes obstructed his agenda when he was president. if trump were to be success. right, what would that then mean from a foreign policy perspective? how would our allies, how would our adversaries look at us? >> so i think that what trump wants to do is take the united states government, which is supposed to act in the interests of the american people, and that has all sorts of systems in place to make sure that it does. even if one official is selfishly motivated and dismantle all of that, and you know, i think the biggest challenge facing people like me who believe that a second trump term would be uniquely dangerous is that there was a first trump term and while it was bad, it did not end in trump's brown shirts rounding us all up and

putting us in camp. the reason i think the second term will be different. he will be emboldened. second of all, he will be surrounded by sip coe fants. you have groups that are trying to make sure he doesn't have people as advisers like john bolton, who very conservative are not trump sycophants. the courts are going to be much more friendly. when trump took office, he had a supreme court that was moderately conservative that would strike down a lot of what he does. now he has an extremely conservative supreme court and for each day that he spends in office, he can put more sycophants on the federal bench. >> ruth ben-ghiat said this on social media, bolton is correct, but he also opted to work for someone who knew he had those sympathies. why not interview experts on

authoritarianism who g not work for authoritarians. implicit is this question of will anyone listen? are there republicans who will listen to a john bolton because he did serve in the administration? >> yes, i think there are, and folks think there may be no more reasonable republicans. but they are out there. there are moderates and young people voting for the first time, and there are independents that are 49% of the country right now that focus on national security issues and tend to consider themselves patriots. if you can just move a couple of thousand of them in ohio and other key swing states, that may be the difference in who the next commander in chief is. i do think you have to double down on. you've got the sycophants falling in line, you've got desantis and others who are going to fall in line behind him and give him that momentum. you don't give up the fight on that middle. the middle is the key battle zone in all of this. >> john bolton pointed out that there were by some chance, there were relatively few

international crises that arose requiring an american response during trump's presidency. now putin has invaded ukraine. we are on the edge of a wider war in the middle east. it begs the question, what would all that mean then if donald trump were president again? >> well, we did have one huge international crisis under donald trump, we had the covid-19 pandemic, and you know, my recollection is trump was telling us to do things like inject ourselves with bleach. we know how he responded to that crisis. i think ultimately what we need -- there's a name for the kind of coalition we need to build to beat donald trump. it is a popular front, and that means that you need everyone in the united states who believes in democracy, regardless of whether they're liberal or conservative, democrats or republicans, if they're someone like john bolton who have done terrible things in the past, for this moment it does not matter. we need everyone to join this popular front who wants to make sure that our democracy is

preserved. that includes people who disagree with joe biden from the left, you know, because, again, he is the only vehicle to preserve american democracy right now, and then once we get through this present crisis, once we get through this authoritarian threat, then the popular front can splinter and can we can return to ordinary politics. >> bolton tried to claim america was equally safe or unsafe under either a trump or a biden presidency. that would seem to undermine the credibility of his argument. >> yes, i mean, i'm not, you know, putting personally a lot of stake in what john bolton says, but i think there are some people who are moved by him. i think the question is can the democrats and all those forces that oppose trump weaponize in some way? we talked on this show in months past about chris christie, could he take chunks out of trump over time. trump is like godzilla, rampaging our future and our democracy. i think it's right that we have to align every opponent to him

to try to take him down. if you can take little pieces off of his voting base. if you can take pieces away from his earned media, pieces away from his electoral votes, you've got to do it. the margin may be so small that's the difference. >> thank you both so much for spending some time with us. paul's latest podcast with retired army lieutenant kol ner alexander vindman drops tomorrow. inside donald trump's plot to steal the 2020 election, his infamous call pressures georgia election officials to change the vote tally in his favor. and the prosecutor who indicted him and 18 others, the authors of a brand new book join us after a quick break. new book j after a quick break.

you may know adam schiff's work to protect the rule of law, or to build affordable housing, or write california's patients bill of rights. but i know adam through the big brother program. we've been brothers since i was seven. he stood by my side as i graduated from yale, and i stood by his side when he married eve, the love of his life. i'm a little biased, but take it from adam's little brother. he'll make us all proud as california senator. i'm adam schiff and i approve this message. growing up, my parents wanted me to become a doctor or an engineer. those are good careers! but i chose a different path. first, as mayor and then in the legislature. i enshrined abortion rights in our california constitution. in the face of trump, i strengthened hate crime laws and lowered the costs for the middle class. now i'm running to bring the fight to congress. you were always stubborn. and on that note,

i'm evan low, and i approve this message. today based on information developed by that investigation, a fulton county grand jury returned a true bill of indictment charging 19 individuals with violations of georgia law arising from a criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in this state. we look at the facts, we look at the law, and we bring charges. >> fulton county d.a. fani willis announcing indictments in the sprawling election interference case against donald trump and his co-conspirators. millions of americans watched

that press conference, but now a new book by a veteran investigative reporter reveals heart pounding new details, no the just about trump's plot to stay in power but about the chilling true story of what happened in the moments after this press conference. in find me the votes, they write this, quote, after the pres conference a new piece of intelligence had been discovered on a maga website, the best time to shoot her, her being fani willis is when she's leaving the building. the idea that assassins might be lurking outside the courthouse, promised her security team to take unusual precautions. quote, after she finished her press conference, willis stepped into a back office, changed out of ore black business suit and into a t-shirt and sweats. a female investigator on melissa's staff with a similarly petite frame as the da and wearing a wig to match her hair put on an outfit that matched what willis had worn standing at the podium momentums before.

quote, the woman was a body double and soon she and a number of others poses as her deputies emerged from the underground garage and were driven off in a convoy of suvs. joining us now, co-authors of that new book, find me the votes, a hard charging georgia prosecutor, a rogue president and the plot to steal an american election, michael is cough and daniel klineman. just when we think we know everything there was to know about this story, there's more. you had access to audio, to text, to emails and one of the biggest surprises in the book that comes out are these threats that are being made against fani willis. >> absolutely. it is so helpful that you played that press conference because that's one we all remember, and this incredibly dramatic scene that takes place just minutes after, which none of the

reporters watching the press conference knew about. but it does underscore just the severity and the seriousness of these threats. i mean, here's an elected district attorney who's being bombarded with vicious, nasty racist and sexualized threats that as indictment day got closer, got more and more specific and more and more hair raising. we talk about one digitally disguised voice that calls her personal cell phone and starts threatening to rape her, using the n word, and then brings up her daughters and where they live threatening her daughters. this was pretty spooky, and that was the kind of duress that fani willis was under. take a step back, can you

imagine merrick garland or jack smith having to be smuggled out of their office because of an assassination threat and what a huge story it would be, but on the ground in atlanta, that's exactly what fani willis was facing. >> there's a point in irony to this story about fani willis, she is methodically -- when this is happening and in the months before it happened, she was methodically investigating the same kinds of threats against average, everyday georgians, people like ruby freeman and her daughter shaye moss who were bombarded with the same kinds of threats who had to go into hiding, had to change their experiences. so it was -- it became intensely personal for her, the idea that someone who is leading an investigation in all of this and becomes a victim of the same kind of criminal activity she was investigating, it's extraordinary. >> there is so much that was unearthed in this book, one source told about a plot sidney powell helped engineer, you write the idea was to tap

ex-intel operatives who would break into election offices in swing sfats and seize dominion voting machines and servers so they could prove the equipment had been hacked by foreign powers. the operatives would need hunting licenses in order to fulfill their mission. hunting licenses? what in the world were they talking about? powell chimed in, pardons, she said, from president trump. i need six to eight pardons, but these weren't ordinary pardons, they would be preemptive pardons, she explained, an advance permission slip from the president to protect the operatives from criminal prosecution in the future should any pesky prosecutors go after them for breaching an election office and stealing the data. >> you know, it sounds crazy. >> i was about to say -- >> of hiring ex-military or intel officers to break into election offices in these battleground states, particularly in georgia, that's where they were most interested in the idea of preemptive pardons. they actually went to trump campaign headquarters and to

rudy giuliani to get him to ask the president. he said, well, this may go a little too far. this is impractical, but the important thing about it was that this was planting the seeds of something that really did happen, an actual cyber heist of election equipment and sensitive voter data in a rural county in southern georgia, coffee county, for which sidney powell ultimately was indicted and pleaded guilty. she funded the thing. it started in a hotel room in northern virginia with sidney powell calling for hunting licenses. it ended up in coffee county with actual criminal activity. >> one of the most interesting characters to me in your book becomes jordan fuchs because i think we have heard the audio of donald trump telling brad raffensperger find me the votes. it was the 30-year-old staffer who had the instinct to record that call. >> one of the extraordinary stories of the entire post-election battle. i mean, remember, trump was

trying to get in touch with raffensperger for weeks, and raffensperger was ducking talking to him because he was -- the trump campaign was suing the secretary of state's office. he was a defendant in a lawsuit brought by trump, and he knew the dangers of getting on the phone with trump, but finally as the days were getting closer to january 6th and the trump people were more and more desperate, mark meadows, the white house chief of staff calls this young woman, jordan fuchs, the chief of staff to brad raffensperger and says the president really wants to talk to your boss, and you know, fuchs goes to raffensperger, tells him, they finally relent. okay, they'll do the call, but our lawyer has to be on the call, you know. they were taking precaution, but fuchs knew the dangers of raffensperger getting on that phone call knowing trump's propensity for distorting anything that might be said.

she unilaterally on her own without telling anybody including her boss raffensperger or meadows or much less the president, puts herself on mute, she's on the call, but you never hear her voice. she put herself on mute. >> the extent to which young women have become the guardians of democracy could be a whole other book. >> this was the gutsiest and most consequential act. >> lindsey graham fought the subpoena from fani willis, and yet, you write, quote, once insided grand jury room graham was affable and ingratiating, and he testified that trump had been repeatedly informed that his claims of fraud had been investigated and debunked and yet he clung to the idea that he had been robbed anyway. if you told trump that martians came and stole the election, he'd probably believe you, graham told the grand jury. gram even suggest that had trump himself was a cheater, at least at golf. you say afterwards graham hugged fani willis and said, quote,

that was so cathartic, i feel so much better. >> this is in some ways symbolic of so much that's been going on in our politics these days. it's that kind of split screen between the fealty to trump publicly and what these politicians actually really believe, and we saw this play out in the grand jury. we weren't there, but we talked to sources who were there and described it exactly as you just did. lindsey graham is a complicated figure, and you sort of have to wonder after fighting all the way to the supreme court and talking about how this was weaponization of the law, and then he goes in and throws him under the bus, as we were told, what is the internal struggle inside lindsey graham? this is the guy who john mccain, the famously the maverick who bucked his own party was his mentor, and then trump comes along and he swears allegiance

to him. so that calling it cathartic i think in some sense was real, his genuine feeling in hugging fani willis. the funny thing we're told by a source after he hugged her and said all these things to her, she said whatever dude. >> what did i miss? >> obviously, look, fani willis has been under the gun figuratively for the last few weeks with these allegations about her relationship with nathan wade. i think she's going to file a response on friday. our expectation is it's going to be a vigorous response that may well challenge at least some of the allegations that have been out there. but you know, the bottom line is, number one, you know, clearly it was a lapse in judgment to have that relationship with the chief prosecutor, but that said, the important underlying thing is it had absolutely no impact on the case at all, no defendants'

rights were violated. there was no prejudice shown, so i would be pretty surprise if the judge ultimately dismisses the motion. >> thank you both so much for being with us. their new book "find me the votes: a hard-charging georgia prosecutor, a rogue president and the plot to steal an american election" is out now the. security experts have been sounding the alarm against right wing disinformation, today the horrible truth of just how awful it can be. horrible truth of jusl it can be. ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ( ♪♪ ) constant contact's advanced automation lets you send

the right message at the right time, every time. ( ♪♪ ) constant contact. helping the small stand tall.

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in the most unsettling and serious way political figures from both parties are increasingly witnessing conspiracy theories, extreme far right rhetoric showing up in their daily lives. as alarming political threats, terrifying voice mails, and illegal swatting calls falsely reporting a crime. roll call reports that according to capitol police statistics, at least 34 members of congress have been the target of swatting incidents since christmas. most horrific of all, a pennsylvania man was arrested yesterday accused of brutally and killing and beheading his father posting a gruesome youtube video in which he spouts alarming right wing conspiracy theories, calls his dad a traitor for serving as a federal official and calls for the death of all federal officials. joining our conversation, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi,

frank figliuzzi. this story is horrific. it is tragic. are we seeing the extreme consequences of conspiracy theories just poisoning people's minds? >> yes, however, we haven't found the bottom yet. we're not yet at the most extreme, but i like to point out to people if you want a clue as to whether some kind of movement has become a cult, one of the things you would look at is the degree to which people are willing to martyr themselves or kill others in the name of their perceived leader, and the part about martyring themselves has played out. we've seen that with the man who tried to breach security at fbi cincinnati and ended up being shot and killed with law enforcement. we saw that with a man in provo, utah, who purportedly swung a rifle around at arresting fbi agents, and he had threatened to kill president biden but now we're seeing the flip side of that, which is not just

martyring yourself but killing others on behalf of your cult leader, in this case trump. here's the background on this man who beheaded his father and displayed the decapitated head on youtube while ranting about an uprising of patriotic americans, calling for that, ranting against blacks, lgbtq community, you name it. his social media is filled with hatred and pro-trump propaganda, and again, the religious -- the religiosity, cult. even if you look at scriptures in the book of luke christ says to his followers, you must forsake all else, even your family, to follow me. this is the ultimate forsaking of family. decapitating your father. why? because he says his father was a traitor because his father happens to work within the federal government under a biden

administration and he also called for the death of all federal officials. >> it is easy to look at this example and say this is extreme, this is anomalous, but i take it in the context of the fact you have swatting calls against 36 lawmakers since christmas. they can be dangerous and deadly. one of the things i keep coming back to, frank, why is it so difficult to track these swatting calls especially if some of them theoretically are coming from the same sources? >> right. this is where technology has gotten out ahead of law enforcement, which by the way happens frequently. so there are issues like spoofing where you can pretend that's your phone number showing up on the screen at the police department but really you're sitting in some other entirely different area code, phone number or even another nation which, by the way, i have not

ruled out that these are coming from overseas. that would complicate things for sure for law enforcement. you can use artificial intelligence to disguise your accent and your voice. yes, do i think this is organized? are my sources telling me there are similar numbers involved in all of these swatting calls? yes. and i can't wait until this person is charged and likely sued civilly by everybody whose lives have been disrupted by the swatting, but don't rule out the fact that this is a foreign power. >> frank figliuzzi, thank you for sharing your time and expertise with us. we're going to sneak in a quick break and then we'll be right back. goals. and look forward to a more confident future. voya, well planned, well invested, well protected.

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china's hackers are positioning on american infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real world harm to american citizens and communities if and when china decides the time has come to strike. they're not focused just on political and military targets. we can see from where they position themselves across civilian infrastructure that low blows aren't just a possibility in the event of a conflict, low blows against civilians are part of china's plan. >> a stark warning today from fbi director christopher ray. testifying before a house

subcommittee he addressed skepticism saying, quote, china's promised a lot of things over the years so i guess i'll believe it when i see it. another break for us. we'll be right back.

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thanks for spending part of your wednesday with us. we are as always so grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. >> going to get right into it. republican party power brokers are going against republican voters in a very big way today. if you have been watching this program you may recall i touched on this. today you have an actual secret