are you a christian author with a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! a chilling assessment just before air time from a source in a position to know, a russian attack on ukraine sometime this week is more likely than not. john berman here in for anderson. this comes at the end of a day that also saw the last american

diplomats in kyiv shut down the amba embassy there, the kremlin's signal, a willingness to talk while continuing their build up. we're going to have live reports from kyiv and washington. we begin, though, with stunning news for the accountants who kept the book for donald trump's empire. they're saying count us out cutting ties with trump. not only that, the accounting firm mazars is warning the trump organization and warning others not to rely on nearly a decade's worth of those financial statements. this comes as you know in the middle of an ongoing civil and criminal probe into whether the former president illegally inflated the value of his assets to obtain loans or has his formr attorney michael cohen once said, nearly to boost his status. >> it was my experience that mr. trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes. such as trying to be listed amongst the wealthiest people in forbes and deflated his assets

to reduce his real estate taxes. >> so three years later, here we are. cnn's kara scannell joins us now with the very latest. what did mazars say in the letter to the trump organization. >> they said telling the trump organization they should no longer rely on ten years of financial statements. these were the financial statements that mazars are compiled for the trump organization, and they said this is based on a couple of things, one is the new york attorney general's investigation. they made a public filing that went into great detail about various misstatements, allegations of misstatements and omissions in these financial statements, everything from the size of donald trump's apartment at trump tower to how much cash they had on hand to how they were valuing golf courses. so a significant move, but in this, though, interestingly, they are not drawing any sharp conclusions about whether there was any fraud here. they say while we have not concluded that the various financial statements as a whole contain material discrepancy

based upon the totality of the circumstances, we believe our advice to you to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appropriate. they're telling them they should tell lender, insurers, anyone else who has relied on this about this. they also quit. they said they would no longer do any work because of an unwaverable conflict of interest. >> they say we're out. so how does this affect the attorney general's investigation? >> well, it's never good when your accountant says you can't rely on the financial statements, and it certainly reemphasizes this point that we have known that the accounting firm is cooperating with the investigation both the new york attorney general and the manhattan district attorney which has that criminal investigation. donald bender, the lead partner who has been the liaison with donald trump and the trump organization for years, he has been cooperating. he went before the grand jury. we reported last year. so it's not a good sign. this also indicates just, you know, again, that there is this break, mazars had said in the financial statements that trump came up with the numbers and

they compiled it and it didn't comply with gaap, and they are saying we're unsure about this at all. >> what is the trump organization saying about this? >> they say they're disappointed that mazars is no longer going to represent them but trying to imply that this is an indication because mazars did not outright find fraud, and saying it's a seal of approval and the investigations are moot. and alleged that letitia james, the new york attorney general and the d.a. are politically motivated. >> kara scannell, thank you for the reporting. appreciate it. joining us now, gloria borger, and trump biographer, author of "trump nation the art of being the donald" and chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobin. i want to start with you, jeffrey. this letter from mazars is a wrong to read into it, tantamount to saying trump lied

to us. >> that's the only logical implication you can draw from it. the way it works, the accountant says give me your financial data, and we will turn it into a tax return, a financial statement, but they rely on the candor and honesty of their clients, and what this letter says is that we can't rely on the candor and honesty of this client, the trump organization. now, who prepared the false information? who knew information that had been provided to the accountants was false? that's not disclosed here. was it donald trump himself, was it lower level people in the organization. not at all clear. but what is clear is that the numbers were wrong. >> common to do, to cut ties? >> super uncommon. very uncommon, and by the way, the trump organization's comment that this somehow vindicates them is nuts. i mean, it's quite the opposite. >> gloria, you know the push

back is going to be this is an investigation being run by liberal democrats out to get trump. >> sure. >> can you lop an accounting firm that you have worked with for decades into this, you know, a bunch of liberals out to get me pot? >> no, look, the accounting firm just fired their client, and they said that it was based on information from what they called internal and external sources. meaning we have done an investigation and for the last decade, we've been telling you stuff that we now believe is no longer true. so try as the trump organization might to blame this on letitia james or politics or whatever else, mazars has been their client for, you know, ten years, represented them for ten years. so suddenly what are they going to do, turn on the accounting firm? i mean, i think it's very difficult for them to do that. if your investors looking to

invest somewhere down the road with the trump organization and this has occurred, why would you ever do that. >> tim, you have written about the former president's finances for a long time. at one point he unsuccessfully sued you for a lowball description of his net worth. did you ever think you would see a day when mazars just dumped him? >> actually, no, only because mazars has been representing donald trump for longer than ten years, and i find it rather mysterious why they're saying they suddenly decided something was amiss here. we deposed the predecessor firm, mazars has represented trump for longer than ten years. it's over two decades at this point. and trump said during my deposition that he had given me statements of financial condition and i ignored him. he never gave those to me. they produced them during litigation, and the documents we received during litigation in the mid-2000s, mazars said in

those documents we're not going to sign off on these as conforming with gaap generally accepted accounting principles, they knew it was problematic, long before a decade ago. the difference was then it wasn't the new york attorney general and the manhattan district attorney raising these questions. you know, mazars said in the letter today that they filed that one of things that convinced them to leave trump in the dust was because of letitia james, new york attorney general letitia james' january filing in which she laid out a number of examples in which trump had inflated his assets. that's not new. trump chs was doing that 20 yea ago, and mazars had reasons to suspect them. and now they're exposed to the same organization that's targeting trump. they're concerned that they have

criminal or civil exposure as a result of these investigations. i think the other practical implication of this is that donald trump is also until the midst of trying to refinance hundreds of millions of dollars in debt because his business holdings are under pressure and his accountant just walked out the door. so the financial pressure has accelerated on his company, on him, and on his children. and trump is going to have to start to scramble to find people who want to lend him money now and are comfortable doing business with someone whose own accountants don't want to work with him. >> pertinent to the civil organization, and the criminal investigation, which is from the manhattan d.a. >> yes. it's relevant to both because the core allegation that both are investigating is that trump inflated his assets, that is submitted financial statements that were unduly and inaccurately large when he was trying to borrow money, and

submitted financial statements that were unduly small, lying too small when he was being taxed. that's at the heart of both investigations. all of those submissions to the banks, to the tax authorities, were prepared by these accountants who have now said don't rely on these documents. >> so gloria, i guess the million dollar question or $300,000 question, depending on who's doing the valuation. the question is what will this do to trump politically as he positioned for the 2024 race? >> you know, trump supporters are trump supporters. i think the question is for donald trump right now. the question is how serious is this for him personally, financially, and given what's going on with the january 6th committee, he has a whole other circus going on there about accountability on january 6th. so i think the question is going to be what happens in the state

of new york, first of all, and then you'll have to see what happens. his supporters will be there, but we have to really give this a little more time to play out. >> tim, we got about 30 seconds left. trump was deposed as part of your case right there. just remind our viewers how many times do you think he lied during his deposition under oath? >> we caught him out lying about 30 times in that deposition. on everything from his financial dealings, to how much he got for speaking fees. he is pathologic on these sort of things. >> ten seconds jeffrey. >> i think the point tim is making about his financial condition, he needs to borrow money from someone. who is going to borrow, lend money to someone who doesn't even have an accountant. and who will his accountant be now. >> and i think that's bad for the kids, it's really bad for ivanka and her brothers who presumably would want to carry

on the trump organization beyond him. >> gloria borger, tim o'brien, jeffrey toobin, thank you all very much. next, born of the grim assessment that it's more likely than not that russia will attack ukraine this week, the embassy closing, security briefings, last minute diplomacy and more. we're going to have a live report from washington and perspective from a u.s. ambassador. and george conway's take on the trump accounting news as well as the feud building between the former president and the senior most leader in his own party, mitch mcconnell, or as the former president calls him, the old crow. may i? we're definitely not lit. i mean seriously, we named ourselves booking.com which is kind of lit if we are talking... literal... ha ha. it's why we're planet earth's number one site for booking accommodation. we love booking stuff! and we're just here to help you make the best of your vacation. ow... hi... booking.com

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at the same time, the white house says a path for diplomacy remains open and similar signals from moscow brought the temperature down just a bit, and it's been back and forth like that all day, right up until air time as russian forces continue to build up three sides on ukraine. white house officials spent the day briefing top house and senate lawmakers in both parties and the tone afterwards, somber at best. >> this is a very dangerous situation. i think you also at the same time have to balance a second concern, which is just as important, and that is how quickly something like this could escalate into something dangerous and casino tastrophic >> the only good news is diplomatic relations. i'm looking for positive news, and i think that's positive. >> senator mark warner who chairs the intelligence committee took note of putin's offer while underscoring the

growing threat. they could launch at any point, nothing i heard today dissuaded me from that. secretary of state blinken told a small number of personnel to relocate in the secretary's words due to the dramatic acceleration of the build up of russian forces. we learned meantime that defense secretary austin will be headed to brussels to shore up the allies and in kyiv, ukrainian president ze lensky said we are together, we are home, and we are in ukraine. this followed an earlier posting that his office later walked back in which some wrongly interpreted he was predicting the russians would invade on the 16th, which is two days from now. we have correspondents on both sides of the atlantic. kaitlan collins at the white house. how is the white house viewing all of this tonight? >> they're definitely concerned, and they can tell, you can hear in their language the way they are talking about the potential

of an attack, that level of concern, that came especially from the pentagon today when john kirby was talking about the potential for an attack here and the way they are intentionally using the language that they are, and we are told by a source familiar that they do believe a russian attack is more likely than not. if one does happen, it's likely to be more significant than it is to be insignificant. that is a lot of nuance there, and remains to be seen what putin would ultimately do, and officials have cautioned they don't believe he's made a decision. but it does speak to the level of concern that they have here of whether or not this is actually going to happen, and they do have a sense here at the white house that very much an attack could happen as soon as this week. >> so what's the latest you've learned about the closing of the embassy in kyiv? >> reporter: this is notable, it had been a drawn down presence, removed nonessential staff, told family members to go home several weeks ago but now that they've officially closed it, the lights were off as you saw earlier tonight. they were in the process of drawing it down, it does show the level of concern they have

about where an attack could happen, and it is in the capital city. they have removed those remaining diplomats in the country much closer to the border with poland where they believe it's a safer area. it does speak to the level of concern that they have. the secretary of state antony blinken believes this is a temporary movement. they don't say how long that's expected to last but we should note it comes amid criticism from the ukrainian president, he believes nations moving their staff to the city closer to poland, they believe it was a shortsighted decision. if there's a russian attack there's going to be a russian attack in ukraine, and they don't believe it makes a difference to move the embassy staff to where they have been moving them. >> kaitlan collins, thank you very much. and i want to go to kyiv, cnn correspondent, clarissa ward, what's the atmosphere given the u.s. decision to close the embassy in kyiv, and after this, you know, what the ukrainian officials are calling ironic facebook post from president zelensky where he mentioned a

possible attack on the 16th. >> reporter: you know, john, it's really just like watching a surreal split screen. there is a huge discrepancy from the alarm, the concern, the warnings, that are coming from washington, and the way that people are behaving on the ground and the way that ukrainian leadership is handling the situation as well. you referenced president zelensky jokingly referring to the fact that, you know, he had been told or there had been reports, rather, that there would be an invasion on wednesday, the 16th. well, now he's decided to call wednesday the 16th a national holiday, national unity day, people are going to fly flags and sing the national anthem. the idea being that he's trying to calm people down, stop people from panicking and really play down ultimately some of the threats that the u.s. intelligence community has been conveying to the ukrainians. now, underneath that, though, john is the reality that there is clearly a very grim picture

taking place on the border, and there are now preparations beginning slowly and calmly in a way that's designed not to upset the ukrainian people but we heard from the mayor of kyiv today who talked about making sure that shelters are ready, bomb shelters potentially, if there was some kind of assault on kyiv, he talked about ensuring that evacuations would be planned and carried out in a precise way, what to do if cell phone towers were taken out. we also heard from president zelensky himself saying that he's going to increase the salaries of ukrainian armed forces by 30%, and he's also going to release some kind of a streamlined information service so that ukrainians can have up to date, up to the minute and reliable verifiable information, so on the surface, things seem calm and there's a kind of rejection almost of some of the rhetoric that we've heard from washington, but underneath preparations are underway, and

there is tension, certainly. >> of course, any sense that president zelensky would shift the messaging on ukraine's plans or desire to enter nato. >> so this is an interesting one, john, because over the weekend the ukrainian ambassador to the uk gave an interview where he appeared to imply that potentially ukraine might be willing to forfeit its long desire, to join the alliance, if they were able to, you know, somehow help deescalate the situation. he then wrote that back very very quickly. and since then, we have seen a number of politicians come out and categorically reject it. this morning, we heard from the foreign minister here saying we continue to pursue our path to nato. we heard, again, from president zelensky later in the afternoon, reaffirming ukraine's commitment right now is to try to proceed on that path, but there have been rumblings privately and behind closed doors that

potentially there could come a moment where ukraine would come under pressure to at least make some kind of a statement to the effect that it's not their immediate intention to join nato because the reality is that even if ukraine wants to join nato right now, it is not feasible for a number of complex reasons in the short-term. and so this would kind of be an easy concession, if you will. however, it would require a big climb down for president zelensky, very difficult for his government to survive, and frankly it's not even clear whether president putin would accept it. >> it is clear that a lot of people heard those comments in ukraine, in the united states, at the white house, in russia at the kremlin with great interest. wondering if maybe there was a window opening. clarissa ward, thank you so much for being there for us. i'm sure we'll talk again soon. perspective from stephen piper, a former ambassador to ukraine. thank you so much for being with

us. what's your impression of this reporting that we just learned that according to a source, a russian attack on ukraine sometime this week is more likely than not? >> well, i think it reflects a u.s. government assessment that there is a significant risk of russian military action against ukraine, and it comes at a time when moscow is sending mixed signals. today there was an effort by moscow to leave the door ajar for diplomacy, although for four weeks now, the russians haven't responded in a positive way to some of the ideas that the united states put forward. meanwhile, you have this military build up continuing, even today, the russians had six amphibious landing ships, leave the harbor, which would give them new capabilities, perhaps for a landing on ukraine's southern shore so there are a lot of alarms about the russian military build up. >> how do you reconcile these two opposing trends, number one, as you said, vladimir putin seeming to open the door a

little bit, or russian officials opening the door to diplomacy while at the same time, clearly increasing the level of their military presence. one pentagon official said they could attack with little to no warning. >> well, it may well be that mr. putin has not yet made a final decision. he is giving himself an out. what i do worry about is it seems that the kremlin increasingly is putting itself in a corner where it will have two options, either to launch a military attack on ukraine or to make a climb down, which could be somewhat embarrassing. i mean, after all of this build up to then just have the troops go home without getting what the russians have called their key demands, things like a renunciation by nato of any further enlargement, that could be an embarrassment, looked like mr. putin had been bluffed and called on the bluff. >> an interesting piece on this, you say russia is cornering itself here, so if you're the

united states, what do you do about that? >> weshll, i think the biden administration has the approach just about right. what they have done is said on the one hand there is a diplomatic path forward. nato is not going to agree not to enlarge farther. it's not going to agree to withdraw forces from the allies that joined the alliance after 1997. it has said there's a range of arms control, risk reduction and confidence building measures which could really make a genuine contribution to security in europe, include to go russia. that's there. but they have also made clear if the russian military does go into ukraine again, there will be significant costs. sanctions, a greater nato military presence on its eastern flank and further shipments of weapons into ukraine in defense of assistance to help the ukrainians better defend themselves. >> i know you were in ukraine a couple of weeks ago. what's your reaction to the u.s. embassy being closed in kyiv? what does that tell you about the state department's thinking? >> well, i wish it did not come

to this, but i take it as another indicator that the u.s. government's assessment is there's a possibility that sometime in the not too distant future, the russian military may go into ukraine. i hope the government is wrong on that. i think it would be a tragedy for ukrainians, but also i think it would be perhaps a tragedy for russia because two weeks ago the ukrainians i talked to, they're determined to resist. if the russian military goes in, it will not find itself having an easy time. >> ambassador, i appreciate you being with us, terrific discussion. thank you, sir. >> thank you. returning to our top story, where the former president's accounting firm dumped him one of several items we'll talk about next with george conway, and new word about rudy giuliani in the january 6th committee and why the senate's top republican is apparently trying to thwart the former president. i can never get enough. ♪ and every time i step up in the building, ♪

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. again, our breaking news from the top of the hour, the long time accountants for donald trump's business empire are cutting ties with him and the trump organization. mazars says the trump organization should no longer rely on ten years of financial statements. the accounting firm writes we have not concluded that the various financial statements as a whole contain material discrepancy, based on the totality, we believe our advice to no longer rely upon those

financial statements is appropriate. joining me now is conservative lawyer george conway who's also a contributing columnist to the "washington post" and jogeorge, you tweeted tonight, this is worse for them than getting impeached twice. why is that? >> absolutely. absolutely, because it goes to his business. impeachment, the worst thing to happen is an impeached president is they're removed from office and they go back to doing what they did in private life. this is his private life. this is what he had to go back to, running his own private business and now his private business, ten years of financial statements have been pulled by the accountants, and the accountants are saying you cannot rely on them, which raises collateral issues for the trump organization, which there could be debt covenants that say you have to provide on an annual basis audited financial statements, reliable financial statements that have been looked over by an accountant, and now he can't do that. they're all gone, all of these financial statements are

worthless to him, and there's no likelihood, i think it was pointed out earlier in the hour he's going to be able to find another accountant to fix this problem, and it's ten years worth. that's just remarkable. this is about as calamitous a thing that could happen to a business that you could imagine, other than getting indicted or going disrupt, and this could lead to going bankrupt. >> what about getting indicted, do you think a worse legal situation because of it. >> of course. it's highly problematic. you have the accounting firm saying they didn't determine whether the material discrepancy, what they're basically saying is we have no idea what the right numbers should be, and you can't rely on them, and the reason why we, and the fact that they are resigning as his accountants meaning they're pointing the finger at him. they have a conflict of interest with him according to the letter which means as i interpret it under these circumstances, they're basically playing on team ag, and team ta, and not on team trump anymore, and they are going to be pointing the fingers

at the trump organization saying, well, okay, the information here, if it's wrong, they gave it to us, and that's not helpful, and particularly it's unhelpful for the investigation, the part of the investigation that's being conducted by letitia james, the attorney general, she has the authority to bring a civil case under a new york statute called the martin act, and the martin act because it's a civil statute and because of the way it's written doesn't require the prosecutor to prove intent and fraudulent intent. and if these statements are basically, if the accountants are basically concluding that these statements contain false statements, basically that case is proven. >> george, separate from this, i want to talk republican politics, the senate minority leader mitch mcconnell is pushing to recruit candidates that he believes have the best shot of winning their races, and he has included several candidates critical of the president. donald trump has plenty of power in the party, but is that power

waning? >> well, i mean, i think they're arguing, mcconnell and his allies are arguing that it is, and i can only hope that they're right. i mean, i think there's this big tension that we saw during the georgia senate elections. i mean, you know, in the house, everybody's happy to kowtow to donald trump because for the most part, you know, the republicans run from safe districts that are heavily trumpy. and you know, if you're running for the united states senate you have to win a whole state and there are lots of states where you align yourself with donald trump or being maga is going to hurt you with, you know, suburban voters who would otherwise vote republican, and mcconnell knows that. he knows that trump caused the losses in georgia last year, and he doesn't want to see a repeat of that, and that's why he's trying to recruit these candidates who are not maga candidates, and that's why he's trying to convince them that they should run and trying to convince people that, you know, being on trump's bad side

doesn't necessarily hurt you in the senate race. >> george, rudy giuliani, we are reporting, his team is in discussions with the january 6th select committee to have him go answer questions. does this represent a significant move on his part, what do you think he's playing at here? >> my guess is he's -- well, he doesn't really have the money anymore, it seems. i mean, according to reports, to basically engage in a lot of fighting over documents and fighting over subpoenas. he is running short on money. he has been begging for quite some time, trump to pay his legal bills and basically trump has stiffed him. the easiest course, the smartest course for giuliani is to cooperate, and giuliani has a lot of legal problems. he's been sued by dominion voting systems and other people who he libelled in connection with the big lie last year, and he's also got this disciplinary

proceeding where he could easily lose his law license. it's already been suspended but there has to be a trial before it can be determined whether or not what the permanent sanction will be. so he's got a lot of problems, and he doesn't really have -- he's got a lot of legal problems, legal bills, and the best way for him to minimize expense is to cooperate with the january 6th committee, and he doesn't really have many reasons to help out donald trump now since trump has been refusing to pay giuliani's legal bills. >> well, if he were to full on cooperate with the january 6th committee, that would be surprising. that would be a big turn. george conway, i appreciate you being with us tonight. thank you very much. >> thank you. just hours ago, the judge overseeing, sarah palin's case against "the new york times" delivered a big blow to pay lins the jury continues to deliberate. we'll give you the latest, next.

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are you a christian author with a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! more breaking news and a big round one win for the "new york times." the judge overseeing former alaska governor sarah palin's d

defamation lawsuit against the times will dismiss after ruling the palin team did not bring significant evidence and will allow the jury to deliberate and reach a verdict but whatever he comes back with, he's going to dismiss the case. palin sued the times after they incorrectly linked a map that palin's committee had posted to a shooting in 2011 that killed six and injured former congresswoman gabrielle giffords, joining us with the latest, brian stelter, what did the judge have to say about how he came to the decision. >> he wasn't pleased because he was disappointed with the "new york times," he felt like the paper screwed up with the editorial you described from 2017. this was an example of very unfortunate editorializing on the part of the times but the law sets a high standard for actual malice and that standard has not been met. basically the judge is saying this trial should not have been allowed in the first place. it should have been thrown out during the initial court proceedings, but the trial did

go through. we heard the presentations from both sides last week, and many legal experts came away with the same conclusion that the judge is concluding, palin's team did not conclude what was necessary with the high malice. where should the bar be set, should the bar be set so high, should it be so hard for public figures who are written about to sue and win. six years ago, donald trump started saying the libel laws should be loosened. sarah palin is trying to loosen the libel laws to make it easier for politicians and celebrities to sue news outlets. in this case, even though "the new york times" has prevailed in round one, it will have round two and three and eventually could have serious consequences for libel law. >> this isn't about the times whether they got it wrong, they did get it wrong. the issue is whether or not there was malice in getting it wrong, and the judge said no way, you didn't prove that, you didn't come close to proving it. >> "the new york times" says this is how it's supposed to

work, when we make a mistake, and we correct it you're not supposed to be able to sue and get millions of dollars. whatever the jury decides is moot but creates a public record for appeals court process. some like to see it go to the supreme court so the libel laws can be revisited and any politician of any party can have power to challenge news outlets in court. that could hurt the foxes when they go on the air and lie about voter fraud, and local newspapers in other ways. this is a case worth watching, not because it's involving palin, but involving significant news. the frustration that sparked a show down in one small california town. why the area is poised to be led by ultra conservatives backed by some in the community with militia ties. e dentistry work for your life. so we offer a complete exam and x-rays free to new patients without insurance - everyday. plus, patients get 20% off their treatment plan.

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in a conservative northern california community, there have been threats made against politicians, outrage over covid vaccines and mask mandates, and, oh, and a six-figure political donation from an out of towner. all of that adds up to the likely removal of a longtime republican county supervisor who critics say is not republican enough. this is the same place where nearly 63% of voters backed the former president in the 2020 election, a red county in a blue state, and now the county is poised to be led by ultra conservatives backed by some in the community with militia ties. opponents of the move worry it could happen in other towns across the country. more from cnn's kyung lah. >> reporter: there is a quiet revolution happening in this rural california town. >> there was just a lot of frustration. a lot of people are pretty fired up. so that kind of lit the fuse. >> reporter: in woody's barbershop, it's not just republican views but ultra

conservative. guns, a confederate flag rolled up in the corner. he's an unapologetic member of the california state militia, who says conservatives like him woke up when covid first struck. >> businesses got closed down and schools and all that, and we've had an oh [ bleep ] moment in this country, and people are like, holy crap, we better get a hold of things here. >> make no mistake, this is now the people's house. >> reporter: they took hold of their local county board. >> i don't care about your decorum. >> you guys are going to prevent me from completing my citizen's arrest. >> i know that change starts local, so that's why all of us are here. >> they were trying to put masks on our kids. >> reporter: venus, or freedom as she prefers to be called, is a mom of two who calls vaccines harmful to her children an. >> why does it have to be so loud? why do there have to be slogans

like let's go brandon? >> being passive gets you nowhere. being just complacent gets you what we have, and we want so much more. they like to call us domestic terrorists because we're passionate. and just because you're passionate doesn't make you a terrorist. >> i think they're going to try to make this community over into their image and make it a very extremist, alt-right community. >> reporter: leonard mody was a shasta county board member. was because early election results show he lost a recall election this month. a lifelong republican and local police chief, moty was targeted because he stood up to the anger at the board meetings, defying their demands to reject state mask and vaccine rules. then threats started online and in public. >> we know where you live. we know who your family is. we know your dog's name. >> reporter: the anger turned into a recall petition to remove moty. a pro-trump millionaire in connecticut with ties to shasta

county took interest in the local recall effort and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the small town race. >> it's very disheartening to me to have a group be able to spend that much money to personally assault my reputation that i worked for 44 years to build in my hometown. >> did the extremists win? >> they won the first battle. i do think it's the republican party falling apart. don't think it's just going to go away. don't think this can't happen to you. >> you might call it shas-taliban. it's the anti-vax people, anti-science people. >> reporter: donny chamberlain runs an online website covering shasta county. she backed moty. with his recall, chamberlain says it's now the far right in majority control. >> they forced the ouster of a supervisor who had truly done nothing wrong. i'm fearful about the kinds of people who will come in and how

they will vote and what will happen to shasta county. >> reporter: the most visible national face of this local recall is california state militia member carlos zapata, who has appeared on conspiracy outlet infowars. >> you don't vote your way out of socialism. once it takes root, the only way to eradicate it is to fight with arms, to have a violent, violent confrontation, blood in the streets. >> reporter: and whose speech at the shasta county board went viral. >> i've been in combat, and i never want to go back again. but i will to save this country. if it has to be against our own citizens, it will happen, and there's a million people like me, and you won't stop us. >> reporter: there were some harsh words that you said. >> harsh to who? harsh to the people who need to hear them maybe. i wish people were more angry. anger gets you to the point of action, right? if i wasn't angry, i never would have acted. you've got to get angry enough to act. so anger is not a bad thing. now, violence, that's a different deal. >> reporter: zapata and his coalition call themselves red,

white, and blueprint, offering what they call a template to turn rage in school boards and city councils across the country into political takeover. >> i would never want my kids or myself to have to go through a civil war, but it seems to me the direction we're headed is in that direction. i don't like it at all. that's why we're doing these political mechanisms, peaceful mechanisms, so we don't have to get there. >> reporter: we know of at least one other county that is close to shasta that is following in its footsteps. nevada county seeking to recall all of its board members. carlos zapata tells us that he's been -- he's heard from at least 60 other counties, john, and what he says he's sharing with them is that template that he was talking to us about, the red, white, and blueprint template, which is essentially a guide for other counties to follow in their footsteps. >> kyung lah, thank you very much. canadian prime minister justin trudeau today took a huge step in fighting against the

trucker-inspired protests that have been hindering traffic flow at the u.s.-canadian border crossings. the details next. and feel what e to get your money right. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ move your student loan debt to sofi—you could save with low rates and no fees. go to sofi.com to view your rate today. ♪ ♪ (music) ♪ i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪

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the brand i trust is qunol. the canadian government is bringing in mu measures to help curb the huge trucker inspired protests against the country's covid-19 mandates. today prime minister trudeau said the government is invoking the emergencies act for the first time to help address the impact of the protests. the act can temporarily suspend citizens' rights to free movement or asem bringa assembl. this comes as the ambassador bridge, north america's busiest land border crossing reopened sunday as ontario province announced plans to loosen pandemic restrictions. the news continues, so let's hand it over to laura coatess and "cnn tonight." thanks john berman. happy valentine's day. >> you too. >> i am laura coates and this is "cnn tonight." there's a heavy feel