. but it is the background noise of what humanitarians have to do with. >> you are saying as that of someone who heard first hands >> heard, for example, that the u.n. official at a checkpoint was targeted by israeli forces while he waited. >> thank you for joining us. that is all in on this wednesday night. good evening, alex. >> thank you for that coverage, chris, and that conversation. you may know him as steve bannon. but on one day, trumps former campaign manager and chief white house strategist will become the federal inmate number 05635509. vannett is excited to report to a federal prison in connecticut on monday morning. that is, unless the supreme court intervenes, which it could do at any moment.

the justice department isn't the only group that lobbied the court about steve bannon today >> mr. speaker, i understand there might be a change in position regarding the house and their stance on the january 6th committee, and it might be regarding steve bannon, and it may have a big impact on his contempt case. tell me what's going on. >> yeah, we're working on filing on amicus brief in his appellate work there in his case >> today speaker of the house mike johnson and several other republican members of the house voted to make the formal position of the u.s. house of representatives, the formal position that the january 6th committee did not have the authority to do the work that it did, and that therefore steve bannon should not have to go t to step back here for some context, remember that the reason steve bannon is headed to prison in the first place is

because he refused to comply with the subpoena from the january 6th committee. that's despite clearly knowing a lot about january 6th and the plan to overturn biden's win in congress. just to refresh your memory, here was mr. bannon the day before the attack on the capitol. >> look, it's going to happen. we're going to have at the ellipse president trump speaks at 11:00. we're going to be live at 10:00. we'll have a lot more news and analysis what's going on through thean day. i'll tell you this, it's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen. okay, it's going to be quite extraordinarily different, and all i can say is strap in. the war room a posse, you have made this happen and tomorrow it's gamehi day. >> strap in, tomorrow it's game day. you might thinkom that defying congress would not be something members of congress would support. you might think that helping a potentially key witness h refus to cooperatewi in an investigatn

into the gravest attack on congress since the war of 1812, that would be maybe inadvisable for the speaker of the house. butsp the republican speaker of the house isn'tre just doing th, he'sju boasting about it on national g television, and toda we may have gotten a clue as to why. today "the washington post" and george mason university are out with new polling that asks voters in six key swing states who they trusted more when it came to protecting our dem ocyes, joe biden or donald trump? and somehow donald trump came out on top. 44% of voters in those six swing states trust trump over biden to protect democracy in arizona, michigan, nevada, pennsylvania, wisconsin, and georgia, 44% of voters trust donald trump, the man whovo incited the attack on the capitol, the man who calls the january 6thho rioters

hostages, and more to the point the man who tried to subvert democracy and steal our last presidential election by force. i mean trump lies about the last election so muchab to this day that last night when he phoned into the conservative channel news max c and started bragging about winning the most votes, the network, news max, scrambled to run a banner that read please note news max accepts the 2020 election results as legal and final. noted news max. now, that is not necessarily because news max cares about the truth but maybe because news max is being sued by multiple voting machine companies for defamation in and aroundan the 2020 electi. but somehow -- somehow more voters in the swing states that willsw likely decide this electn trust donald trump over joeel biden when it comes to defending our democracy. that poll is confounding, but it also highlights a dark reality

and one that we have to wrestle with to understand what is really happening in our nation's politics right now. the big lie is working. not everywhere and not all the time, but donald trump is his republicanru boosters in congre and the right-wing media, they have all successfully sold a sizable portion of the american public not just on the lie the 2020ie election was rigged but that people like donald trump and steve bannon are victims, and that they, trump and bannon, are the defenders of freedom fighting against an unseen fascist cabal. as preposterous as it may seem that lie based on grievance rather than actual truth, well, that lie really seems to have found an audience. >> i have the wounds all over my body. if i took this shirt off you'd see a beautiful, beautiful personau but you'd see wounds a

over, allou over me. i've taken a lot of wounds, i can tell you, more than i suspect any president ever. >> not only is trump fund-raising offy of this by printing his mug o shot and t-shirts and mugs, he's claiming in hise' fund-raising pitches tt when he had his mug shot taken in fulton county, georgia, he was tortured in the jail. now, if you live on earth one as i do, it is almost impossible to take trump's martyr act serious. he was president of the united states, he tried to steal an election, andst he's getting special treatment in courtrooms across thisea country including and maybe especially in the highest court of the land where, by the way, the court has still not yet ruled on whether donald trump hasd absolute presidenti immunity and can basically do anything he wants.

but if you live on earth two, if a majority of the information you are receivingjo is either fm right-wing media or from donald trump and his allies and their social media feeds, well then the lies really seem to be sticking. but we are now less than 24 hours from one of the very few times before november when the people of earth one and the people ofan earth two will see e very same thing at the same time. tomorrowam night at 9:00 p.m. eastern president biden and donald trump will face-off in a televised debate that will be hosted by cnn but will also be simulcast on fox news and abc and c-span and other places. basically if you turn on the television tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. odds are you will see this debate. and according tois a new online survey fromew the associated prs 4 in 10 american adults say they

are going to be watching live. that's almost half the country. so with this massive opportunity to pierce the bubble of these lies, what does joe biden do? joining me now is georgia democratic senator rafael warnock. senator warnock serves as pastor as ebenezer church in atlanta. i can think of no better person to help me understand this moment. thank you for joining me. let me first ask as someone who understands the state of georgia well, howe and why is donald trump abled to convince a majority of voters in your state that he is the real defender of democracy, that he is the champion of freedom? >> alex, it's great to be here with you. thank you so very much. hail for the great state of georgia, and where the debate will happen tomorrow.

i think it's appropriate rememberpr that was georgia aft all that saved the day. i was on t the ballot here in 21 one of five times. and who would have thought that when the nation was at this critical place, that it would be georgia that would make the difference, sending its first african american senator and its first jewish senator to the united states senate from the state of the old confederacy, a state in the old jim crow south. we literally gave the country a chance, and i think that at the end of the day georgia voters are goinghe to do it again becae they see the difference. look, we'll see these polls go up and down between now and november, and, you know, forgive me for quoting scrippture but you asked to talk to the preacher tonight. i still believe as jesus said you know the truth, the truth shall set you free.

we have to lay out the contrast between these two men and tomorrow's a critical moment in that tidiscussion. i think as tough as these times are, thees thing about this election is that it's a binary tool and the choice could not be moreul stark. it's literally between a man who can only think about himself and is obsessed with himself right nowwi with all these criminal charges hanging over him, and a man who's literally dedicated his whole life to public service, a noble calling. and i think our job between now and november is to preach the gospel, which literally means the good news about the work that's being done and yet the great work we have to continue to do. >> you know, you bring upue the gospel and scripture, and i wonder if we can extract any lessons from that. there's no better person to sort of try and understand the magnetism of trump then you

reverend warnock, reverend senator. i know you spoke last week about the moral and spiritual battle the country is in, and this is really a t spiritual crisis america is going through that's been exacerbated by trumpism. and i don't thinkat it's lost o anybody theos way in which trum sees himself as a sort of savior-like figure. he was talking in that sound we playedat earlier about if he to his shirt off, you'd see the wounds. which implicitly or explicitly evokes the struggles of jesus and his campaign. i wonder what you make of that but also the deeper yearning that people who follow trump are looking for? >> donald trump is a plague on the american nation. i talked about the fact we were in the midst of this terrible once in a century pandemic and

we saw those around him at work trying to divide the country. that's what people do. and georgia sent an african american plan who grew up in public housing and a jewish man in onend fell swoop. i believe martin luther king jr. and rabbi herschel were in that moment giving each other the high five ing glory because th marched alongside one another. i have to admit to you the next day i was feeling great about what georgia had done. everyone wanted to talk to me about how we won this election, but that next morning was january 6th. the victory was short-lived. we saw a violent assault on our capitol unlike anything we've seen since the war of 1812 driven by this big lie you're talking about, that the election was stolen. what we have to remember is behind that big lie is an even bigger lie. what they were really saying is that this new emerging american

electorate, multiracial, multigenerational doesn't get to decide theer direction of the country. they're trying to d take us backwards. joe biden is trying to take us forward, and the choice this november isho between the ameri of january 5th that has a place for kids like me and for kids -- appalachian kids, poor kids, and the america of january 6th that sees our neighbors as enemies. and it couldn't be a more stark choice, and i believe at the end of the day the people of georgia and the people of this country, there's just enoughnt decency i this country, and we keep pushing and keep laying out the truth that the truth will prevail. >> you know, you talk about the power of the multiracial, multiethnic coalition that brought you and senator ossoff into office, again.to and i do wonder whether -- what

you think w of the strength and health of that coalition in your state coming up this november, because the polling shows president biden is slipping among communities of color. i believe a new atlanta journal constitution poll out today shows among black voters in georgia 69% of them are going for biden, 9% for trump, 6% for robert f. kennedy jr. 12% are undecided. in 2020 exit polls had biden at 88%. so ifthosis numbers are right, that's nearly a 20% drop, and i wonder do you believe it? what do you hold to account for it? >> well, as somebody whose name was onl, the ballot five times georgia in less than three years and who preaches every sunday from martin luther king jr.'s pulpit, i think i know a little something about black voters. and i canin tell you black vote are not going to show up and vote for donald trump, not in any appreciatable numbers.ec we'll see the polls go up and down between now and november.

heck, the a truth is most americans aren'tis really payin much attention until after labor day. and so we'll continue to make the case that really we're talking talking about the soul of our country. we are, i believe, in a spiritual battle between those who want us to see each other as enemies, turn on each other, and the forces in our country, build a nation strong enough, broad enough in its moral vision to embrace allmo of us. it is that nation that gave me a chance, 1 of 12 children in my family. how did imy get there, pell grants, low interest student loans. which is why when i got a moment, when i had awh chance t speakwh directly to the preside of theea united states at one o our caucus meetings, i reminded him ofng his promise to do studt debt cancellation. to hisnt credit, he got it. and with one hand behind his back, he's canceled some $160

billion of student loans, helping some 5 million americans. we hope that by the end m of th year there'll be many, many more americans. i can tell you i go in rooms with black people all across this state and i ask them have you or anybody you know gotten student debt cancellation. and i haven't beenen in a room t where hands have not gone up. on top of that $16 billion on investments on historically black colleges and universities. black wealth is upll 60% since before the pandemic. prescription drugs capped at $35 of out-of-pocket costs per month. that's my bill, which the president signed into m law. so theen question is do we wanto keep building on that progress? and t surely people are struggling. i think the whole nation is struggling with what i call a low grade fever after three years of a pandemic, prior to that 20 years of war. i think there'sof some days you wake up in the morning and there's just this numb feeling. and the question is who do you

want leading ats a time like that? i think we want somebody who has been baptized in his own pain and suffering and said good-bye toer children more than once, h lived a life of service, not a perfect man but one who has been made better by struggle and who understands the struggles of their people. that's joe biden. >> senator rafael warnock, it's a pleasure r to have you on the program. thank you so much for your o ti. >> thank you. there is much more ahead tonight including donald trump's narrow list of vice presidential contenders, which features a selection of men who all at one timell said they wanted nothingo do with him. so who's it going to be? but first today we got a glimpse of a secret supreme court opinion the justices did not want us to see yet. we're going tos get into why precisely it is so very controversial. that's next. s so very controversial. that's next.

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with just days to go before the end of the term, the united states supreme court handed down two rulings this morning and then inadvertently they gave us a sneak peek into a third. earlier today reporters at bloomberg law got access to an accidently posted copy of what appears to be the court's decision on a very consequential abortion case. according to bloomberg the court is poised to allow pregnant women in idaho to receive abortions in medical emergencies. now, on its face this sounds like a good decision, but the decision here appears to be based on a technicality, effectively, rather than the actual merits of the case. the justices did not decide whether state level abortion bans can be overwritten by federal law requiring doctors to provide meical interventions including abortions in emergency

situations. in other words, whether doctors are allowed to perform emergency abortions if medically necessary. and that is very much a live issue in five other states where abortion is almost completely banned. as justice ketanji brown jackson made very clear in her opinion the ruling not a victory for pregnant patients in ohio, it is a delay. while this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people remain in a precarious position as doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires. the author of the forthcoming book "unbearable being pregnant in america." thank you for joining me. you understand this, the complexities of these issues better than most. but first the voracity of what we saw today, does it smack of the actual decision as you read it? and ketanji brown jackson is not

mincing words about how upset she is. >> so many fascinating dynamics break down here. the first is the court did say a text of the decision was uploaded. we know it's a legitimate document. we don't know if it's a final document. it's funny how we're getting to peer back behind the curtain and the court looks like a hot mess so many times that happens. it could just be an error. that seems like the likalist reason and certainly reads. there's a small chance it was yanked because perhaps an outcome of a vote has changed. i doubt it. we'll find out tomorrow morning perhaps the next day when the decision is scheduled. >> what of ketanji brown jackson's saying this it is too little too late for the court to take a mulligan and carry on as if none of this happened,

basically rescinding the petition for cert. as the old adage goes the court has made its bed so now it must lie in it. i mean these are forceful words from the newest member of the court, and she seems quite upset about how this is handled. >> this seems very powerful coming from justice jackson because in some ways she's calling out another new member of the court, amy coney barrett, who describes herself as having changed her made having taken the case. big picture what's at stake here is that for the longest time on planet right-wing fantasy there is no emergency abortion that is justified, and if there is we're not going to call it an abortion. that is the planet they've been living on. two years ago that was put into practice. the reality had to intercede that in fact there's plenty of reasons why somebody might have to go to an emergency room and need abortion care. their answer in the beginning was, oh, no, someone's misinterpreting the law.

now we've gotten to the stage their lawyers are in court saying not that, maybe that, that doesn't really happen that way or if it does, it's the doctor's fault trying to make us look bad. they've been mostly forced to say they are in fact waiting for someone's organs to fail, waiting for someone to die and that they don't care if they suffer serious impairment, which is the federal standard. right, so that's the backdrop every other week somebody is being medevaced, a pregnant woman is being medevaced in idaho, and women are being told if they consider getting pregnant in idaho they should preemptively buy a membership to a medevac company. >> yes, life flights out of the state in case you get pregnant. >> there aren't that many people in idaho and yet there's somebody ever other week that needs this care that goes to the hospital. the backdrop is the court jumped in on this so fast before the lower courts even had a chance to fully explore the issue because they agree, they took at

face value idaho's government the federal government was going to force them to sufferif reparable harm by forcing them to recognize this law. in the end we ended up with a 3-3-3 opinion. okay, we had the three female democratic appointees. we had three quote-unquote moderates -- >> i would put that in heavier quotes. >> you know what, we had three republican politicians, cavanaugh, barrett, and roberts, who i think need to be understood as they would rather wait for the trump justice department to resolve this than blow up this issue -- >> they see what's happened to the country in the process, in the wake of dobbs. >> yeah, they saw 2022, and then you have the true believers, gorsuch, alito, and thomas who wanted to burn the whole thing down. within that you have ketanji brown jackson saying don't bother with this fake joifgsz of the procedure to say, oh, well

we shouldn't have taken it so we shouldn't decide if we'll wait because she knows there's a lot of other states. >> that's the thing. there's a case in texas that's the mirror image of this almost certainly going to go to the court. >> she's saying this. don't make these other women in other states wait. we saw the same thing happen with the mifepristone case. great for now access is preserved but what about all these other cases that are coming? are they just punting it because they know how bad -- and by them i mean the republican appointees, some of them punting it because the issue will not blow up in their face because there's a debate tomorrow and an election in november when the trump department or potential future trump appointees can take care of it in the future. >> the political calculation that's at the root of that is just damning for the court if that's actually what's happening. it is a remarkably cynical view about the high court, but it's

hard to imagine having any other assessment of what's actually happening. a wealth of knowledge on this. thank you for your time, my friend. coming up we have new details what donald trump is doing to prepare for tomorrow's presidential debate, which apparently you are allowed to call anything but debate prep. but first rupert murdoch's right-wing media empire is letting it be known who he'd like to pick for vice president. is donald trump even listening? that's next. vice president. is donald trump even listening that's next.

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would you do business with donald trump? >> i don't think so. >> why? >> i just think that it's important that you're judged by the company you keep, and i -- >> just wouldn't do business with him? >> no, i wouldn't. >> i'm a never trump guy. i never liked him. what donald trump has done is change the focus of the white working class from a sort of engaged and constructive politics a politics of pointing a finger. >> what we are dealing with here, my friends, is a con artist. he is a con-artist. >> those are reportedly the three front runners for donald trump's vice presidential pick. today the conservative editorial board of rupert murdoch's wall street journal weighed in on those steaks making the case for north dakota doug burgum. so it's pretty clear who rupert

murdoch wants here, but the question is donald trump even listening? joining me now is tim miller, writer at large for the bulwark and also with me former missouri senator and co-host of the how to win 2020 podcast, claire mccaskill. i do wonder if the murdoch empire matters to trump anymore. what weight do you think any of this has? >> it you might remember donald trump's post and they were all in for desantis. they put all of the weight of the murdoch empire behind desantis. there were soft focused segments on fox and friends of ron it desantis throwing the ball around with the fox and friends hosts, and all that amounted to

literally nothing. donald trump crushed ron desantis, so i don't know why donald trump would care what "the wall street journal" headboard or rupert murdoch thinks now when they've done nothing for him and he still is stronger than ever at least within the republican party. >> it does beg the question, though, what exactly is trump looking for? and i'll read an excerpt from the editorial board of burgum to get your thoughts on this, claire. the governor has an executive experience and a highly successful tech ceo at microsoft, which bought his company. he managed to work well with steve ballmer, which wasn't easy. and unafraid to offer advice to speak the unhappy truth when donald trump denies it. is that what you think, claire? >> here's what the editorial would have to say, doug burgum is perfect because he would not upstage donald trump. he will be as quiet as donald trump wants him to be.

number two, he's great because he looks the part. number three, he's great because he can put his hands on a lot of money. now, if they wrote that editorial, that might have some resonance with trump because those are the three things he cares about. by the way, i would advise them not to put in the editorial look how well it worked out for pence. >> the more the editorial board bear hugs him, the less likely trump will pick whoever they bear hug. now did j.d. vance being celebrated talking about how he was a never trumper to on his short list for surrogate son? >> that baby face guy was making a lot of sense in the intro. what happened to him? if we could only bring him back. >> what did happen to him? >> donald trump is on his side right now and i view what happened to him as what happened to a lot of these guys, smak thing that happened to marco.

they saw these guys wanted maga, wanted trumpism, and they back filled the policy rationale to support that. and i think someone like j.d. vance was always moderate on economic issues, and so he used that to argue he's maga and he layered on top of that i guess in order to be maga i have to suck up to donald trump and go with the big lie and do vaccine conspiracies. he layered that on top of his more authentic populous economic agenda, and now here he is as kind of a golden boy in the maga world. >> i do wonder if there's something to the idea don jr. likes j.d. vance and trump wants to be the alpha in the presidential, vice presidential relationship and therefore does that put j.d. vance slightly higher thin sweepstakes because of everybody else because of his sort of fealty to donald trump and his relative youth. claire? >> well, you know, you can look at that two ways.

j.d. vance was successful with a book and was well-thought-of before he became maga by a lot of folks in a lot of different places. you know, that's the problem trump has. he wants someone who looks vice presidential but someone who will never act independently, never, ever take the shine off of trump, and frankly will do whatever he tells him to do that was pence's problem. pence actually thought the constitution mattered. pence wanted to follow the law as it applied to peaceful transfer of power in america. i mean all -- i mean if you look what donald trump did to marco rubio, it's just sad that these guys are groveling. i mean they're falling over themselves to try out, to get this job, to grovel at his feet, to kiss his feet. it's not a show of strength. what they're trying to show is they're weak enough to be the vice president that donald trump

really wants. >> yeah, tim, i mean your thoughts on marco rubio and the just appalling transformation begging and scraping at the alter of trump. >> yeah, that's a great point claire said the weakness, you need weakness to get it. i think the rubio transformation, a lot of it stems to bitterness. when i was writing about these guys my former colleagues and former right republicans i used to roll with what i found in these interviews and i interviewed marco but people who worked for him thought they were mad, that they felt judged by us, that they felt judged by the media by our friends, and some of them reacted to that very poorly. and i think marco feels aggrieved, he feels bitter, and that's almost thrust him into donald trump's arms. it's a sad tale, and he offers donald trump the most humiliating option because if he picked marco as vp, marco's got

to move. >> what a role it is to be donald trump's vice presidential pick. tim and claire, please hang with me for the next block because i want to get your thoughts on one more story, which is on the evil of his first debate with president biden donald trump has set that expectations bar at sea level. how much does any of it matter? and later i'm going to speak with "time" magazine reporter eric cortelesa with akaa steve bannon due to report to prison in just six days. stick around for that. to prison in just six days stick around for that. my blood sugar would suddenly spike or really go low out of nowhere. it was really scary. (dr. swamy) this small wearable alerts you 20 minutes before you go too low or when you're high so you can take action in the moment. now we're talking a game changer! i'm back in control!

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number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. we are less than 24 hours away from the first presidential debate. nbc news reports today that president biden participated in at least one mock debate yesterday and another one today at camp david where he has been residing since last thursday. as there trump he's reportedly been participating in something calls policy refreshers. so far trump had held about half a dozen of these sessions each about an hour long involving a core group of five top aides. just don't call it debate prep. it is a policy refresher. trump has also bip devoting some of his time to the expectations game. his latest line is that if president biden does well tomorrow, it minds he's on drugs. >> a little before debate time he gets a shot in the ass, and that's -- they want to

strengthen him up, so he comes out. he'll come out -- okay, i say he'll come out all jacked up, right? all jacked up. >> back with me are tim miller, writer at large at the bulwark and former senator claire mccaskill. claire, this is not a new line from donald trump, right? in 2020 he called for joe biden to take a drug test. in 2016 he said hillary clinton was juicing, wanted her to take a drug test. is this truly the best he can come up with given the past? >> yeah, he doesn't know how to do anything but personally insult people. it really is his only -- that's the only song in this hymn book, and he's gotten himself in a bind because he's spent so long convincing everyone this guy can't walk or talk, i even noticed kevin mccarthy on fox today talking about how sharp joe biden is and how he knew every details of a policy coming

coming back from a g7 meeting. and i'm like wait a minute, wait a minute, you were just quoted in "the new york times" saying he didn't know where he was. they're kind of caught. they can't really keep up that the guy is horrible because joe biden is going to come out tomorrow and he's going to be scrappy. you know, it's going to be really interesting to watch how joe biden tries to take on donald trump with his lies and his meandering and crazy talk. i predict we'll see "state of the union" joe biden, and it will be quite a wonderful debate. >> i do wonder, tim, was it policy refreshers, because it's never, ever debate prep -- trump's meeting with the millers, jason miller and steven miller to get his game tight, get kellyanne conway back in the mix, i think rubio and vance have been helping him with policy refreshers. what do you think the topic is having anybody talk to trump

ahead of the debate given his performances prior? >> well, i also don't think much of policy refreshers. he can't admit he's prepping because of his ego or ubwhatever and they come up with this nonsense talk. it's worth noting the reality donald trump did improve between the 2016 and 2018 debate. it didn't help him in the end. joe biden ended up winning, but donald trump has a lot of flaws, but he is capable of taking some feedback and standing down from the upper edges if he doesn't get triggered, and i think that's joe biden's job during the debate, and joe biden has to be presidential, has to put forth the policy agenda but he also has to get under donald trump's skin a bit because trump is going to be the calm for trump version, not calm for a politician but calm for trump,

and biden's got to try to bring real trump back, bring debate trump back. >> calm for trump is a category unto itself. i know you guys are in atlanta. thank you for your time. i'll be joining you in atlanta myself for msnbc's special coverage of the first presidential debate that's hosted by cnn. our coverage begins tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. eastern and goes until very, very late when the pizza comes out. coming up, a new interview sheds light on what steve bannon plans to do while serving out his prison sentence, which is set to begin next week. here's a hint. steve bannon is not going to be pumping iron or so he says. i'll speak to the journalist who interviewed him right after the break. e journalist who interviewed him right after the break.

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trump advisor steve bannon is just days away from the start of a four month prison sentence for contempt of congress, that is unless the supreme court agrees to bannon's last ditch request to remain free while he appeals his conviction. today the justice department urged the high court to deny that request, but for a man who could possibly be reporting to prison this monday, steve bannon appears sort of unfazed. in a new interview he tells "time" magazine reporter i don't fear this at, i'm a political prisoner. he writes, bannon is attempting to rally an audience he calls an army of the awakened to sustain his anti-establishment crusade. by playing the martyr bannon hopes to elevate his brand of

burn it all down populism ahead of the presidential election. joining me now is the national politics reporter for "time" magazine. eric, thanks for joining me tonight. my first question is the sort of understanding he has about being side lined in the months leading up to this presidential election given what you write about, the real leadership role he plays in the maga movement. unlike other maga personalities who seem to follow trump's lead, bannon can rightly claim influence over the movement. so what are his prison plans? >> well, i think that bannon sees his prison sentence as an opportunity to fortify support for him as a martyr for the cause, and he's going to try to capitalize on that as much as he can in the days leading up to him reporting for prison in a connecticut penitentiary, and he's going to try to lay the groundwork for this anti-establishment usade that he believes can help deliver the

white house for donald trump where he can unrestrained embark on the right-wing nationalist populist agenda that he's promising. i think in prison bannon promises to spend his time in the library following the news voraciously communicating with his associates so that he can still have a role in shaping messaging going into the election. >> yeah, he told you think i'm going to come out and be prison ripped, no, i have a lot of work to do. so he's not going to be pumping iron in the yard, he's going to be continuing on with his messaging and missives. in the be continuing on with his messaging and missives. eric, talk to me a little bit about what you saw behind the scenes in term of his consumption of media and his planning for battle, if you will, his strategizing. >> well, you know, where spent some time with bannon recently during a saturday morning recording of his podcast at his capitol hill townhouse once

known by all as the brightbart embassy. it's full of all these shrines to maga icons including peter navarro and even a bust of bannon himself. and, you know, bannon is -- he watches msnbc religiously, by the way, and he is really monitoring who he sees as the opposition in the information war in order to build up maga as a social movement as much as he can so that he can have the greatest influence throughout the next couple months leading up to when voters will cast ballots. but also if trump wins, he wants to see these kinds of ideas be imposed, you know, hostility to immigration, hostility to free trade, and an aversion to foreign entanglements. so he's really trying to build the infrastructure for a trump

revolution. >> what i think is a development at least if not actually surprising is the handshake between republican establishment leadership and the cause of steve bannon. i wonder what your impressions were the work the speaker of the house did today on behalf of steve bannon, effectively distancing congress from the work of the january 6th committee as an aechlt to negate bannon's contempt of congress. it's not the wing of marjorie taylor greene. >> well, i think it goes to show just how effective bannon has been at transforming the republican party into sort of a political wing of the maga movement through war room, through his allied maga media personalities. he's really created a fighting machine as a top aide to president trump told me to go

against republicans who are not in line with trump. he has built a media ecosystem that can exert pressure, and you have people who work in tandem to coerce republicans and try to dismantle the old guard republican establishment. i think this shows just how effective he has been at doing that really since january 6th when maga as a movement has only grown in size and strength. >> well, it's a fascinating read. i guess i'll say i'm glad that steve bannon's watching msnbc. i'm just going to leave that there hanging as if it's a question because i'm not entirely sure. thank you for the great reporting. it's good to see you. >> thank you. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. and this is where i'm concerned. he is taking this serious. he has spent one week at camp david only