looked at me, oh, you are eating all that? >> i feel if ozzy osborne is alive and fine, eat in moderation, and the next day it's ok for you. >> put chocolate ice cream on the omelette. welcome back, john. >> john: harris, thank you so much. fox news alert, all eyes on a judge in florida this hour as we await his decision on whether to unseal the affidavit used to justify the unprecedented raid on mar-a-lago that the fbi conducted last week. good afternoon, john roberts, and up first for us, first time i've been sitting here -- >> good to see you, a lot to get to.

>> aishah: former president trump pushing to release the affidavit but the justice department is urging the court to keep the documents secret, saying releasing it publicly would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation. >> john: documents show the government is investigating trump for potential obstruction of justice and possible violations of the espionage act. >> aishah: and what's at stake at today's hearing, and peter doocy how the white house is responding. >> john: mark meredith live outside the courthouse in west palm beach florida, mark, what can we expect in the next coupon of hours? >> good afternoon. we can expect the judge to listen as lawyers are trying to push to get him to unseal a federal affidavit which would likely outline where the investigation stands into the former president. this is going to be fascinating, we have also seen the judge

already agree to release some materials. the search warrant came out, which detailed not only what was collected from mar-a-lago, and 11 cases of documents, either labelled classified or top secret. the former president and his team insists he had a right to have these documents and he has declassified the materials before leaving the white house. he posted on truth social trying to point reporters to what he says is a sound argument on that point. the government disagrees, trump says it's political persecution against him, it's possible he could choose to release surveillance video from inside mar-a-lago when agents were there. we don't know if he's going to do that or not. law enforcement officials warn there is a threat being made against them online, pretty broadly, however, it's happening not just in florida or d.c. but around the country. the federal government is arguing if they were to release this affidavit that it could strongly compromise their case going forward. also impact potential witnesses that are cooperating with the

government. we did hear from former vice president mike pence who says he has plenty of questions about what happened at mar-a-lago, but he also says republicans need to keep their emotions in check. >> and these attacks on the fbi must stop. calls to defund the fbi are just as wrong as calls to defund the police. >> we have seen extra security here at the courthouse, only a small number of trump supporters, pretty much two vehicles going back and forth and a large group of media outside, and inside they will be able to record everything that's going on. we believe the hearing is getting underway. don't know how long it's going to last. >> and federal court, no cameras in the courtroom and the judge says nobody can leave until the hearing is over, it may be a while before we find out what happened. mark, thank you. >> aishah: the whole country is watching, but president biden continuing to publicly keep his distance from the trump investigation. peter doocy is travelling with

the president in wilmington, delaware. hi, peter. >> peter: white house officials claim they know as much about the mar-a-lago search warrant today as they did when it happened. >> one reason why joe biden got elected president, he promised that he would stay out of meddling like his predecessor did in investigations being conducted by the justice department, that he would not politically interfere in the justice department enforcing our laws. that's what we have done here, that's what we have done in all cases since the president has been here. >> peter: karine jean-pierre said potus rejects funds to defund the fbi like defund the police, and turns out the one topic where biden officials don't feel the need to criticize their predecessor.

>> do you consider donald trump to be a political rival of president biden? >> i'm not going to speak to that from here. >> you talk about trump all the time. do you consider him -- i don't talk about him all the time. >> maga, criticizing covid last week, mentioned his january 6th response a couple days ago. can you say based on all that, i didn't say anything about mar-a-lago, i'm asking you if you consider the president -- >> from here i'm not going to comment on that. >> peter: and that was the last white house press briefing, august 9th. our last opportunity to ask the administration in any kind of depth and detail what exactly is going on, what they knew and when. president biden has been on vacation since. back to you. >> aishah: almost perfect timing. thank you, peter. live in wilmington. >> john: timing is everything. for more on this, jonathan turley, george washington university law professor and fox

news contributor. what do you think judge reinhardt is going to do this afternoon? i mean, he was sympathetic to the doj request first of all, the fbi request for the subpoena to search president trump's home, he's already ruled once in favor of the doj. but this is the target of the investigation that's asking for this to be unsealed. and could he possibly rule from the bench this afternoon? >> jonathan: well, it's possible. i doubt he'll do it. the expectation is he's going to keep the material under seal and yield to the demand of the justice department. now, judges often defer to the justice department. it is important to note, a number of us have been in cases with the department of justice, including national security cases and they make this identical argument in each of those cases, even in criminal cases i've had where the defense is entitled to information you see this argument being raised. but courts tend to be very defer

l ential. elements here we have never seen before, raid on a former president and the political opponent expected to challenge this president in 2024. a warrant breathtaking broad, allowed every piece of paper to be scooped up by the fbi. you have the fact that this was the strange timeline where there were -- there was a long delay, there is leaks from the justice department about nuclear weapons information, and mysterious videos. all of that makes this i think a closer question that the court should seriously consider, and i have to say one thing else, john. no question in my mind a redacted affidavit could be released here without compromising aspects of the investigation because part of the affidavit is going to be the communications with the trump team. they already know that. what we are looking for is confirmation of how those communications were presented. >> john: although the justice

department makes the case it would have to be so significantly redacted everything would be out of context and you could not tell what the affidavit was all about. you mentioned leaks and lara trump weighed in on why she thinks there needs to be more transparency here. listen to this. >> there are so many questions, and to release the affidavit would at least put some transparency in the hands of the american people because we need to have faith in our justice system, we need to have faith in our fbi and unfortunately it has really been lacking for a lot of americans since last monday. >> john: subject of leaks, leaks to the media have been framing the whole context of all of this, and for president trump to get out there, the real reasons behind this if you were to unseal the affidavit then you would find out the real reasons. but also could that potentially backfire on president trump in that unsealing this could be

potential prejudicial to him if he didn't face charges. >> jonathan: go for it, release it, affidavits are one-sided. by agents, we think this person is a criminal. most defendants don't want that to be released unless they are in a criminal case they need to see it. but there is a counterveiling aspect to this affidavit, the justice department has been under attack, people have legitimate questions about the department of justice. it has a documented history of false and misleading statements in trump investigations. you can't ignore that. and the problem i have with how this has been unfolding is that people like attorney general garland have complained about the attacks on the fbi and questions about its integrity. but he's done very, very little to address that. there are things he could do, modest steps that he could take that he's refused.

for example, he refused to have a special master separate out material that was not clearly the purpose of the investigation, privileged material, attorney/client material. i can't imagine why you would refuse that, i can't imagine why that was not in place originally so you could go to the public and say you know what, this was not a pretext, we were not looking for other stuff, that's why we have a special master who is going to do that. those are the types of steps that garland just simply shrugged and said i'm not going to do it. >> john: and merrick garland, i read your column about merrick garland. >> i was a big supporter of garland when he was appointed, i supported him getting a vote in the senate. but i thought he was a great choice because he has a history of impecable ethics and integrity.

i'm not questioning his integrity. i do think that he may have the wrong personality, judicial temperament may not be a good fit for the justice department at this time. he often seems to be a pedestrian rather than the driver, he comes out late to any controversies, the fbi integrity is being challenged and that was predictable given the history of the trump investigations. once again, garland really did not take any steps to try to address that, to try to assure millions of americans that this wasn't targeting the future opponent of the current president. >> john: one quick last question, over whether former president donald trump could be prosecuted. he claims that he declassified all of these documents as is his purview to do as president and that he had conversations with the fbi about how they would be

handled. does that insulate him from prosecution? >> jonathan: i don't think it insulates him. they could be declassified and still charged. difficult if not untenable. we have not seen this standing order that the former president refers to where he said i made everything i removed from the white house declassified. we really don't know much about that order and some of us would like to see it. but there's no question that the president has the ultimate declassification authority, and so the question for attorney general garland is, do you want to bring a criminal case where you have to write some new constitutional law, that's usually not what you look for. people are reluctant to open up a case against a former president. here you have to create some new constitutional law, or at least clarify it to get to a conviction. >> john: jonathan, thank with us through the afternoon, we will get results from the court at some point, we believe in the

next couple hours. thanks. >> aishah: chris swecker, former fbi director, to get a handle on what the doj is thinking. the doj does not want this out. what kinds of things might be in the probable cause affidavit they don't want released or could redact and release. >> first and foremost, protecting the live sources, people who have provided information that went into the affidavit, and that is -- you cannot get this kind of search warrant without live people, live sources giving them information. it didn't we done with data checks and you know, things that are, you know, just what i call desk investigations. you've got to get a live source in there. so they don't want to see those sources compromised. that's one thing. there probably is some national security related information in there, but if you look at the statutes that are involved with

this search warrant, they do not cite classified information. they are talking about information relating to national defense. so i would submit to you that you could have classified information that he could unclassify but would still relate to the national defense. so i'm not -- i think that's sort of a side argument that people are overlooking. >> chris, i've seen so many probable causes over the years that i've, you know, been a reporter. and sometimes they are heavily redacted to the media to try to explain why they conducted the search warrant, why they did what they did. couldn't we see a scenario here where the judge decides that that could happen? you are talking about witnesses and protecting witnesses that might want to come forward for possible other investigations. why couldn't we see a situation where we see a probable cause affidavit but heavily redact it? >> that's possible. i agree with jonathan turley.

i don't think this judge is going to release the affidavit. i think they are going to refer to the justice department. but it's certainly possible. this happens every day in foya, and in the government where you just redact documents and send them out. i think there is some concern that they would just raise more questions and cause people to, you know, i don't know if we would go any distance in alleviating the mistrust that's out there. that mistrust is wide and broad and it is not just this particular affidavit. it's the backdrop of hillary clinton, hunter biden and all the other things that have been happening. >> aishah: it's unprecedented, it's major, the whole country is watching. "wall street journal" editorial board said the rub this time is that the justice department wants to keep the affidavit secret lest it is released, and compromise a criminal investigation. but that's what justice and the fbi always say. mr. trump has called for the

affidavits release so the judge cannot claim risks to the former president's privacy. as jonathan just said, it's rare the target himself would be calling for a probable cause affidavit to be released because when you think about what's happening here in the context of the situation, you've got someone, the former president who really has been, can't put a defense together because he and his team have not seen this affidavit, when he's being tried in the court of public opinion, doesn't that matter to the judge in this particular case? >> it does, but i think it would -- i'll put my attorney hat on, i was a former prosecutor as well and i don't understand why the trump legal team has not joined the motion or filed their own motion to have this affidavit unsealed and filed what we call a rule 41 motion, a motion to return the documents, which you are entitled to under federal rules of criminal procedure, when

there's a search. search warrant executed. you can question the search and the basis for the search all at the same time and demand the documents back, and i'm a little bit perplexed by the fact the trump legal team is sitting back. >> aishah: why do you think they have not taken any legal action, have not filed any documents in court? >> i -- it may be they don't know what's in there either and they are not anxious to have that publicized in terms of the affidavit itself. it's going to show, i think, that there are people in the trump team, or inside mar-a-lago that are talking, and the information that's coming out of them is certainly not going to be favorable to donald trump. as far as the motion to return the documents, that would be the first thing i would do as an attorney, and i'm totally perplexed they have not done that yet. >> aishah: at this point whatever is in this affidavit, chris, it has to be big, because i don't know what this looks like if it's not, this whole

ordeal, it could undermine the fbi. chris swecker, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> john: another alert, former financial chief of the trump organization has entered a guilty plea in an new york state tax evasion case. indicting him last year for taking nearly $2 million in off the books compensation. david lee miller is live outside the courthouse live in new york city. how much time behind bars, if any, is he looking at? >> this agreement calls for five months behind bars in addition to five years probation, but under new york state law, and with time served, weiselberg will probably get a sentence of 100 days. as part of this deal, he will have to testify against the trump organization and related trump businesses which face similar charges and slated to go on trial in october. the former president is not a defendant in the indictment and

under the plea deal, he is not required to testify against him or cooperate with prosecutors in other legal proceedings. his attorney issued a statement saying in one of the most difficult decisions of his life, he entered a plea of guilty to put an end to this place and the years' long legal and personal nightmares it has caused for him and his family. the judge warned if he violates the terms of the plea deal, such as failing to testify truthfully for the upcoming trial, his guilty plea remains, but he could receive 15 years. off the books compensation from the trump organization, including over a million dollars in rent for an apartment, 200,000 for leasing two mercedes and 350,000 in private school tuition for his grandchildren. the trump organization reacting in a lengthy statement saying in part, a long time trusted employee of the trump organization is a fine, honorable man, the past four

years, harassed, persecuted by law enforcement in the never ending quest to get president trump. the statement says the prosecution of mr. weisellberg is an effort to pressure him to say bad things or make up lies about the former president. also says the trump organization is not going to strike any type of a plea deal, even though it is named in this tax evasion indictment. the reason they are not going to strike any deal, john, the statement goes on to conclude, simply because we have done nothing wrong. john. >> john: david lee, thank you so much. amazing, five and a half years since the trump administration began, and it's still top of the news. >> aishah: never ending, and you think about the whole, you know, sphere of the trumps and what's happening around them, so many different cases and sometimes i

wonder how many lawyers do we have to handle this and this and this and everything else. >> john: and a lot of people are thinking former president trump's disagreement, if you want to put it that way, war, if you want to put it another way with the fbi can serve as a potential partial launch pad to a 2024 -- >> aishah: absolutely, it's already political, if any of those, the momentum from the election fraud claims, if any of that waned he got a huge bump in the emergency from the base. >> john: whether it has become political or is political -- >> aishah: absolutely. court hearing for the man who stabbed salman rushdie, he told the new york post he's surprised rushdie survived. so bryan, what else did this guy say? >> plenty, aishah.

24-year-old man is set to appear in court, he just had in chautauqua county in western new york after he was indicted in the attack against salman rushdie last friday. he pled not guilty to the charges of second degree attempted murder and assault, and look, just yesterday he gave an exclusive jailhouse interview to the new york post where he all but admitted to the attack. he told the post about rushdie, when i heard he survived i was surprised, and said i don't like the person, i don't think he's a very good person, i don't like him, i don't like him very much. matar did not say whether he was inspired to attack rushdie by the death edict put on the author by iran's then ayatollah in 1989, but did say i respect the ayatollah, i think he's a great person. that's as far as i will say about that.

iran has denied any involvement in the attack. but rushdie lived under death threats for more than 30 years for writing "the satanic verses," some muslims found sacrilegious and offensive. matar was inspired to go to chautauqua after seeing a tweet announcing rushdie's visit there. prosecutors say matar stabbed him ten times including the neck and abdomen, while he was on stage about to give a lecture. and the prosecutors also called the attack preplanned and targeted. rushdie is expected to recover but may lose an eye, we have not received the latest on his medical condition. we are waiting on that. aishah. >> john: remarkable he survived, stabbed ten times in the neck and abdomen.

>> aishah: a big story, remember how much outrage there was when jamal died, and trying to take out an american journalist. >> john: and the threat of mike pompeo and it's a plot still unfolding. national park service rangers found say they have found another set of remains in lake mead, the fifth in a few months as the water levels continue to decline. what investigators are saying now. >> aishah: crisis at the border growing worse and worse, and now most americans are changing their view on it as well. why that could mean big trouble for the white house. former acting i.c.e. director and fox news contributor tom homan will weigh in. >> these people are simply coming across the border and this administration is not enforcing our laws and putting

americans at risk.

whether to release the department of justice affidavit used to justify the raid on mar-a-lago. doj opposing such a move, the trump team pushing for its full release. we have a team of producers in the courtroom watching the case. the judge has said no tweeting, no phone calls, no cameras, nobody can leave the courtroom until the hearing is over, so it will be radio silence, aishah, from west palm beach for a little while. >> aishah: you know who that annoys the most, the media. we are the ones paying attention the most closely and annoyed. yeah, it could be hours, it could be that he decides he does not want to make a decision today. here is the thing, it has gotten so messy, right. you think about the former president has not even been

charged, and yet he's having to go through this court of public court of opinion. if he is charged, john, eventually, what if they find a jury that has not been tainted. >> john: and that's one of the considerations whether to release the probable cause affidavit, you put all of the of course -- all of the information out there, at least if you keep it sealed there's a jury pool that does not know the full content. >> aishah: i've seen plenty that have been redacted, i think it could be an option. drugs, death and disorder, that's what texas border officials have been seeing the last couple of days here. incidents of human and drug smuggling, river rescues, and another massive fentanyl bust all on full display. bill is in eagle pass, texas, seeing it all for days now, bill. what's the latest?

>> bill: good afternoon to you. yet another busy day out here in eagle pass. border patrol source telling us there have been more than 1,000 illegal crossings here just since sunrise this morning. the day is not over yet. take a look at the video our drone team shot a short time ago in normandy, the outskirts of eagle pass, a huge group of 300 that crossed all at once. almost all of them are single adults, no longer the families or little kids showing up. dhs source telling us in the last 24 hours alone in the del rio sector, more than 2,000 illegal crossings. take a look at the second piece of video, this was another large group we had this morning. just after the sun came up like clockwork every day, we have another big group. this one, about 150 in total. once again, almost all of them single adults as you can see. it's a big drain on border patrol resources. then take a look at this remarkable photo out of mexico. 150 migrants were found crammed

into an 18-wheeler, a big rig trailer smuggled up to the u.s.-mexico border. thankfully the mexican government intercepted this, they got intel and were able to stop it before it got to the border. but incredibly dangerous with the hot summer temperatures out here at the southern border. the major fentanyl bust, cbp in nogales, arizona, seizing 250,000 fentanyl pills, colored to make it almost look candy-like. and the last photo, exact same thing today, another 15,000 of the colored fentanyl pills they found today. cbp port director saying it's concerning, looks like it could be the start of a new trend with cartels targeting younger users with the candy-like appearance. back to you. >> aishah: thank you, bill, live from texas.

>> john: tom homan, put up the npr poll, i found it interesting. people were asked if they believed there was an invasion at the border. 28% said that statement was completely true, 25% said somewhat true for a total majority 53% saying yes, there's an invasion at the border. now, while more republicans, apparently in this poll used the word invasion to describe it, it's definitely a bipartisan issue to get to a majority. >> tom: look, i think all you have to do is look up the definition of invasion. i mean, there's two different definitions. i read, one says incursion of a large number of people, and an unwelcome intrusion of a large group of people. 2 million illegal entries already this year, we are going to end about 2.5 million by the time they count the last two months, on top of the historic 1.7 last year. and legal argument, attorney

general from the state of arizona gave a legal analysis saying based on the definition the u.s. constitution it's an invasion, article 1, and that's why you have people like lake running in arizona, she's going to enforce immigration law because the federal government has abdicated the responsibility of doing it. >> john: numbers as of july, 1,946,780 people that had been encountered at the border, given the trends over the last few months we are well past the 2 million mark right now. yet the biden administration continues to say there is no problem here, the border is closed, and they are not taking the steps necessary to reduce the number of people coming across the border illegally. >> tom: and that's one of the reasons i have called for second term mayorkas to be impeached. he testified in front of

congress and committed perjury, will not admit we have a crisis on the board, and they are watching tv, down there busting their butts 24/7, taking sickness home to their own family they are catching on the border and they see their boss, second of homeland security saying there is not an incursion. there's not a crisis on the border. and i want to follow up with what bill just said, he's doing a great job down there, there has been 1,217 migrants die on u.s. soil since joe biden became president, and that was the number from a week ago. 1,217. and since they have several deaths every day, that is incredible. no one is talking about that. he says his policies are humane, over 1200 migrants died on u.s. oil, add to that, over 100,000 americans who died from fentanyl overdoses coming across the border, how does the administration stand up and look in the tv camera and say this border is secure when americans

are dying and record number of migrants are dying. it does not make sense. this administration sending a false message to the american people. the truth is, this the largest crisis i've seen in my 35 years of doing this job and it's costing lives. >> john: as you were speaking there, tom, we saw images of the border patrol and the texas national guard at a gate on private land. i want to bring up the video full screen and explain what we are seeing here. texas national guard had closed this gate. there was a group of illegal immigrants on the other side of the gate, along came customs and border protection and unlocked the gate and let them in. i assume the reason why cbp did that is because these people already had feet on american soil and under the law had to be processed in some way, shape or form? >> tom: yeah, if they are claiming asylum, they have to be taken in custody and interviewed.

during the trump administration, sent them back on the remain in mexico program. my day on the border patrol, i arrested a lot of people in wearing that uniform and those people were back in mexico in an hour. i cannot believe what we are doing now. the biden administration is releasing thousands a day, thousands a day they are releasing into the united states, while there are thousands of empty i.c.e. beds paid for that are empty because if they are not detained and lose their case they won't be removed. >> john: tom, cbp is coming in for some measure of outrage for opening that gate. is it the case that they had to open that gate or say to the people look, you have to move further down the fence to where there is an opening. again, this was on private land. i'm wondering legally, did they have any recourse or did they have to do that? >> tom: on private land and that's -- i did not realize it's private land. private land, that's a question for the attorneys. i would say that if these people are in bad shape and they are

asking for help and they are claiming asylum, border patrol, and humanitarian duties probably had to open that gate. but you know, i -- this is a legal question on private property which i don't have a clear answer for. if it would have been me and they are in trouble, they are desperate and claiming asylum and you want to send them back in the river -- especially with infants, you want to safely re-patrate them, that's what i would have done. >> john: and you can't put a fence down the middle of the rio grande where the border actually is. if the illegal migrants get feet on dry land on the u.s. side in some way, shape or form, whether it's sending them back, detention, or releasing them for a future hearing you have to process. >> aishah: and i've been to the border three times now and talked to border patrol agents, nonprofits who are helping some

of these people, especially the refugees and asylum seekers, it comes down to asylum laws. anyone, you and i can cross the border and seek asylum and even if they don't wind up being categorized as asylum seekers, they can ask for it and then we have to process them. that's the law, it's the adjudication that takes forever and then we send them to the interior of the country and deal with that later. that's the issue. >> john: and many people like tom homan and others say the solution cannot be on the border. >> aishah: a murder mystery in paradise. a man takes his new bride to a luxury resort on their honeymoon where she winds up dead. police say he confessed to killing her only to take it back. so, what in the world is happening here? >> john: the governor of virginia fighting back against a school proposal to stop calling america's first president as the father of our country. have educators gone woke over george washington?

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>> john: update on the spent of the salman rushdie stabbing. hadi matar ordered held without bail in western new york state. he has pled not guilty for attempted murder of salman rushdie at an educational retreat in the area. matar saying rushdie attacked islam, though he acknowledged, according to reports to police, that he has only read two pages of rushdie's 1980s book "the satanic verses." again, 24-year-old hadi matar held without bond on charges of attempted murder. entered a plea of not guilty before the judge. aishah. >> aishah: a virginia board of education meeting ends with a

postponed vote on new test standards. decision follows pushback from the goefrp's office or two proposals that would remove founding father titles for presidents george washington and james madison. griff jenkins is live in washington to explain what this is all about. griff. >> good afternoon, aishah. per state law, the virginia board of education is required to revise testing standards every seven years for history and social studies lessons, but concerns after it was discovered in july proposed changes eliminated calling washington the father of our country or madison the father of our constitution. the board claims, aishah, that was an inadvertent error since corrected. nonetheless, governor youngkin had a message for the board. >> i want to be very clear. i want us to teach all of our history in virginia. the good, and the bad. this is the moment for us to take a really, really serious

look at how we are teaching this most important topic. >> other concerns are revisions to course content, structure, themes and concepts. this comes after the nine-member board now includes five new appointees by youngkin, a republican. the other four by democratic governors, who says they are not deleting any parts of history. >> they look like an error but -- >> he is the father of the country. >> as gee, all of a sudden virginia doesn't want to recognize washington and madison, which of course is ridiculous. we are not at that point even of discussing that. >> not yet, that's why new board member is demanding no part of history be left out. >> let's not erase people, names, and dates. so, let's make sure that at least our founders and framers get their due respect for the founding of this exceptional

country. >> so where do things stand? the board is delaying the review over proposed changes with the vote for the standards for november. we'll continue to follow it. aishah. >> aishah: please do. in every other country, john, the first president is referred to as the founding father, not even a conversation. >> john: and history is history as well, and i just spent a week in europe where the history goes way back, nothing we could even conceive of. the difference between the united states and europe, united states they think 100 years is a long time, and in europe, they think 100 miles is a long way and there are dark moments in every nation's history. do you erase them or just teach them so people get the full concept. >> aishah: exactly. more to come. >> john: a close eye on the courthouse as the judge presides over a hearing whether to unseal the doj affidavit used for the mar-a-lago raid. we will bring you the latest on

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>> aishah: a high school principal is going the extra mile for his students as a nationwide shortage of bus drivers adds a major roadblock to bringing students back to school for in-person learning. the problem got so bad last year that our next guest got a commercial driver's license so he could get behind the wheel when needed. this is brian smith, the principal of a high school outside of milwaukee. brian, thanks for joining us. looks like you are in the office right now because school is probably, well, school is still out, right, you are still on summer vacation. >> yeah, the new teachers are here today and our staff come back next week and the kids here the following. >> aishah: talk about taking matters into your own hands, explain what you have to do. do you just drive this bus when you need to take the kids to their away games so they don't have to leave early and skip out on class? >> yeah, so, ultimately in the spring of last year we had a

number of student athletes and the coaches that are teachers had to leave early because our bus company was short some drivers, so they had just enough drivers to do the afternoon route so we had to come up with creative solutions and usually what it meant was taking the team, all of them early and dropping them at the other site and having the kids work in a cafeteria for a couple of hours until their game happened. and that way the bus driver could come back and do the afternoon routes. and for me, i'm looking at the track team in particular, my son is on the track team, and i'm thinking well, i'm headed there at the end of the day anyway. if i could just get a license, i could drive the house and it would solve the problem and have 100 kids in class, three teachers in class and they could stay there until the end of the day. >> aishah: brian, that's amazing, leadership, truly. explain to our viewers what's driving shortage. what's happening with bus drivers? >> you know, i really don't know

what might be making some of those decisions for folks. we are hoping some news stories will get people to express some interest and potentially follow it as a career path or even if you are a parent and headed to the events as well, you can get your cdl and drive the team and help out and keep kids in school as well. so, the motivating faebt for getting folks into the busses for me is really about being around the kids and being able to help out and make a positive impact in the new challenging time. >> aishah: department of transportation has tried to help schools like yours, making it easier to get licensed to drive the busses. what more do you need from the department of education and the department of transportation? >> you know, just, you know, support and positive messaging i think would be certainly appreciated from the standpoint of motivating folks to be part of the solution. we need bus drivers, we need teachers, we need referees, and really it's going to take all of us to help make sure that our

kids have all the opportunities that we want them to have, whether that's during the day or at night for all the events that these kids have access to. >> absolutely. the kids, they have gone through so much already with the pandemic, we want them to be in class as much as possible. brian, thanks for what you do, and we hope the story helps you find those bus drivers. >> that would be great. we have actually, one of our local stories did motivate somebody to come into our local bus company. we are hoping more will happen from it. >> aishah: you know what's crazy about this, john, in albuquerque, they actually increased the pay and they offered new incentives and they were still short about three dozen drivers at the start of the school year. >> john: i like the idea of volunteering to do it. >> aishah: should we do it? i like being around kids. >> john: there you are. new at 2:00, a major black eye for the cdc. the agency admitting it failed at the handling of covid. what happens now and what will it take for the cdc to build

back trust. dr. nicole saphier is here. and we continue to watch the hearing on the affidavit in the mar-a-lago raid. will the judge rule for it to be released or stay under seal. all that and more as "america reports" rolls on this thursday afternoon. stay with us. riders! let your queries be known. yeah, hi. instead of letting passengers wrap their arms around us, could we put little handles on our jackets? -denied. -can you imagine? i want a new nickname.

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>> john: team trump against the feds. >> aishah: the hearing could wrap up at any point and fox teams are in place inside, outside, ready to go live for us. >> john: also ahead, the centers for disease control admits it failed with covid. now can it survive a critical deficit of the nation's trust? we are looking into how an agency once seen as a national point of pride ended up too sick to do its job. >> what's up, doc? >> aishah: what's up, doc. no longer limited to cartoon

characters who like their carrots. pennsylvania senate candidate dr. oz has an answer. >> john: how he is explaining his viral reference to veggies now being roasted while helping his opponent rake in the lettuce. a lot of metaphors there. welcome back as "america reports" rolls into a second hour. i'm john roberts in washington. good to be sitting with you. >> aishah: former president trump's court fight happening right now as we speak. it is a fox news alert. >> john: president trump's legal team is making the case for unsealing the affidavit that was used as a basis for the mar-a-lago raid. hearing and response to several media outlets asking the court to make the affidavit's contents public, and many of trump's republican supporters are demanding its release, and the

former president demanding the release, saying it would help them understand the extraordinary step of searching a former president's home but the justice department is arguing those details need to stay private or it would jeopardize their current investigation. >> aishah: and that is happening the same day the trump organization top money man pleaded guilty in a new york courtroom. part of a deal could allow him to cooperate with prosecutors. a course close to allen weisselberg is now talking to fox news about whether he might actually flip here. those details are part of our fox team coverage. david lee miller is covering that part of the story. >> john: in florida, mark meredith is live outside the courthouse in west palm beach. don't know a lot of what's going on now. >> we do not, the hearing has been going on more than an hour, we have a team of people inside the courtroom but the judge is barring people from tweeting out

or e-mailing out what's going on in realtime so we are going to have to wait to find out. several media outlets were pushing the judge to unseal the federal affidavit, and what led up to the search at mar-a-lago. the search warrant showed the government is investigating the former president for potential violations of obstruction of justice, and espionage act. for his part, the former president says he wants to see the judge agree to unseal this affidavit. he says it's all about transparency. but legal experts tell fox they don't believe a judge will see it the same way, especially because the investigation is ongoing. trump and his supporters, they have been quite outspoken, continuing to cast the investigation as the latest effort to curb his political power and his political future. it is possible that trump could choose to release some surveillance video of what federal investigators were doing while they were in mar-a-lago a little more than a week ago. we don't know for sure he is

going to release the video but we know it is certainly possible and there's been a lot of talk that could come out at any point. the former president also continues to fund raise off of this. we have seen him send out fundraising emails, to make sure he's able to get his supporters engaged what's going on. and we have seen him having to answer some criticism that his legal team may not be up for the challenge when you have such a complex federal investigation underway, that was a story in "washington post" yesterday. we heard from trump's people yesterday and trump overnight says he has a lot of faith in his legal team because he believes he did nothing wrong. john. >> john: mark meredith down there, watching this all for us. mark, thanks. get on the line as soon as you hear something. appreciate it. >> aishah: now the other breaking legal matter for the former president, his long time chief financial officer pleading guilty to 15 tax fraud charges and will likely be called to testify against the trump organization in an upcoming

trial. david lee miller is tracking it all from outside the federal courthouse in lower manhattan. so, david, could weisselberg be required now to testify against the former president? >> in a word, that is not going to happen. weisselberg will not be compelled to testify against former president trump. this indictment only named weisselberg and two corporate entities. it did not name president trump. those two entities, the trump organization and its affiliated trump payroll corporation, are slated to go on trial in the fall. the plea deal struck today only requires weisselberg to testify against the corporations, not against mr. trump. pt it also does not demand he cooperate with prosecutors in any other legal proceedings. in a statement, the trump organization released a short time ago said in part, the two

trump companies the manhattan d.a. has been targeting will not be taking a plea for the simple reason they have done nothing wrong. we look forward to having our day in court which quite interestingly has been scheduled for october 24th, just days before the midterm elections. this statement accuses the manhattan d.a. of bringing the prosecution against mr. weisselberg to force him to say bad things and make up lies about the former president. what he has to say might be damaging in the court of public opinion, mr. trump does not face criminal charges. weisselberg, cfo, pleaded guilty to not reporting $1.7 million in income during the hearing, off the books compensation from the trump organization, including over a million dollars in rent for an apartment, 200,000 for leasing two mercedes, and 360,000 in private school tuition for his grandchildren. the agreement will call for five months in jail and five years probation. but under new york laws and with time served, likely he'll spend about 100 days behind bars.

if, however, he violates the terms of this plea deal and does not testify truthfully, he could be sentenced to as much as 15 years in a state prison. and a short time ago, an attorney for allen weisselberg issued a short statement said in part that his client agreed to this plea deal in order to end what he described as a years' long personal and legal nightmare. aishah. >> aishah: david lee miller live in new york. thank you. >> john: given the fact the judge sided with the justice department in approving the search warrant of mar-a-lago, we have said in many ways was unprecedented, you expect he'll stick with that and with the doj and the desire to keep the contents of the probable cause

affidavit sealed? >> i don't think those rulings are related. as long as you have probable cause it's fairly straightforward to get a warrant, and remember, it was not really the judge that was the main decision maker, it was merrick garland for weeks as to whether to seek, to take the fateful step of serving the search warrant, applying for it, raiding the residence. and we are in unchartered grounds here. this is an unprecedented sort of situation. the public interest, obviously, is very high, the political ramifications are very high, so it's absolutely -- the justice department is absolutely right. typically you do not unseal the warrant application and related affidavit but this is not a typical case, and the judge could do various things. he could redact things related to national security or protect the identity of witnesses, a partial release. news organizations, the fact they are all aligned with, in

this case donald trump, that could be significant but we really don't know. a lot of discretion here and it's not clear whether the normal situation of not revealing that kind of detail in a criminal investigation will prevail in this abnormal circumstance. >> ilya, what does the doj argument reveal in trying to keep the document sealed? it sounds like it appears they are more focused on potentially losing witnesses rather than, you know, the national security issues that people have been talking about for the last several days. what's your biggest take away from even their argument to keep this locked up? >> i mean, i think they are looking for evidence of an investigating allegations that are greater than simply mishandling classified information. i don't think they would have executed the raid just to charge former president trump under the

espionage act or obstruction of justice, which significant crimes to be sure, but given the hillary clinton or david patraeus for that matter, former director of cia, i doubt they would go to the high profile, national news breaking step so. i don't know whether they are on a fishing expedition, concrete significant allegations of, you know, inciting the january 6th riots or whatever else, but they clearly don't want other people, including especially donald trump himself, to know what they are thinking. >> john: so there's an argument out there, ilya, releasing the information could be prejudicial to president trump. he may not be charged anything. but if you get the information out there the court of public opinion form a lot of determinations, opinions about

what has actually happened here, and typically when you are the target of an investigation like this, you don't want probable cause information out there. so in some ways, and i don't believe president trump has filed anything in support of the media request to have this unsealed, but certainly he's been out there on truth social and many statements saying yeah, get it all out there. is that the wrong play on his part? >> it's a risk. as don rumsfeld would put it, a lot of unknown unknowns here. and typically the target of a criminal investigation would not want this stuff revealed because, for one side, it's only a one-sided presentation, and you can't refute it until the eventual trial happens. and for another, you just don't know whether you are in a better position now. he's got some sympathy, including not just his most rabid supporters, but people saying unusual, why is the justice department taking this extreme unprecedented step of raiding a former president's

home. so, there could be pluses and minuses, for the justice department and for donald trump and the release of materials. >> john: good to get your thoughts on things. appreciate you being with us. >> thank you. >> john: you know, part of the reason why, i mean, you are thinking about the targeted investigation typically does not want the probable cause out there. this is equally as much political as it is anything to do with legal. >> aishah: crazy. and you and i have talked about this, any other case i don't see a judge releasing this affidavit, especially when you've got the doj saying it's going to impact national security issues, this is going to release names of potential witnesses, sure, you could redact it, release it, but this is such an unprecedented different situation where you know, we have said over and over again, you've pretty much got the former president on trial,

right. i mean, the whole country. >> john: even though he's not. >> aishah: even though he's not and might not be ever. but now at some point -- now we need a conclusion, now we need some sort of like an answer as to why this even started in the first place. >> john: and you can bet judge reinhart will take all of it. a couple years ago, new york city was a gleaming big city that boasted about its safety. these days, the pick is your is nowhere near as pretty. outrageous attack caught on video. the latest incident that has the big apple looking like the bad old days. >> aishah: and a story that broke yesterday. cdc admitting it failed at the one job, the one job it was created to do, couldn't do it. how will this agency come back from such a big botched job? dr. saphier is with us next. meoa smart move when you bought your home.

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>> john: fox news alert, west palm beach florida where judge bruce reinhart has issued a solemnonic decision, saying some of the documents associated with the probable cause affidavit should be unsealed and released today. however, when it comes to the entire affidavit, he is saying that not all of it should be released, and that he's going to entertain redactions from the justice department. mark meredith will be up in a second with more on all of this. but it seems, aishah, to have been not quite a complete ruling from the bench but going some distance down that road. >> aishah: that's right, and of course the doj has been trying to prevent the entire document from being released and they have been pushing back saying that we think that we might lose

potential witnesses for future investigations, that this might be a matter of national security but we have talked about this all day, that it is possible to see this affidavit released redacted, and this happens all the time, john. i've requested affidavits in my entire career and i get them all the time and sometimes you'll see big black marks and they are redacted but you still get the gist of why the search happened and that's exactly the point that we want to get to. let's bring in mark meredith, he is live for us in west palm beach florida just outside the courthouse there, i believe. mark, are you there, and what can you tell us about what we just found out moments ago? >> hey, i sure am. we have seen leave the courthouse, trickle out, and idea what was happening inside almost realtime, like a giant game of telephone. you and john were talking about some of the headlines we are seeing that of course the judge

believes some portions of the affidavit should be released but understands the government point some of the redactions will need to be made and he is going to give the government more time to figure out what they would like to stay sealed and what can be made public and it's possible there could be appeals further than that. so the process is far from done. but it is interesting the judge also agreed to release some additional materials, we were kind of expecting. the additional materials tied to the search warrant. it indicated what the government was able to remove from mar-a-lago, top secret, classified, and what the crux of the last week is about, why the documents were at mar-a-lago. former president trump claimed he had unclassified them before leaving office and his right to keep them, but there are concerns whether or not it was a national security risk. and a lawyer for president trump who had told the justice department earlier in the summer the documents were no longer at mar-a-lago, so we'll be waiting to see whether there are any

major changes that may come from this redacted affidavit if and when it is released eventually. not going to happen today but we are going to get the portions of the search warrant. in terms of what we have been seeing in the west palm beach area, a lot of media but only seen 1 or 2 trump supporters. it was not the circus we saw a week ago outside of mar-a-lago where you had people going back and forth for hours at a time. it is certainly possible, though, that depending on what we find out from this additional material that that could either help the president in terms of his political base or it could hurt him. it all depends on the information that comes out. there were various mediaia outls pushing to get the materials released. this was not a demand officially legally from the trump team. instead, something argued on behalf of media organizations saying in the interest of transparency, imagine the worldwide interest in the case, something so unprecedented something in the public interest to come to light. the judge says he understands the request at that level but of

course the government's security concerns are still a part of this. it's possible we could hear lawyers from the media team come out to speak. we have a podium from 50, 60 people crowding around it, and again, as i mentioned, people trickling out of the courtroom. the hearing lasted a little more than an hour, an hour and 15 minutes or so, and we'll be waiting to see some sketches that come out. we have a courtroom sketch artist to give us some flavor. but federal court you don't have cameras in there, so we have to rely on the bits and pieces of information and the sketches there. and you have seen the former president really try to fire up his base about this saying he is under political attack and this is all about him being prevented to run potentially in 2024. but you also have the other side which says this is all about justice, ensuring that national security was not compromised and ensuring the former president was abiding by the rules of law, as well as the long standing principles and rules and law set

by the national archives and other organizations so a lot of talk about where this investigation will go. we knew through the search warrant the former president is investigated for potential obstruction of justice and violation if he kept documents there. the former president certainly seems to be welcoming these challenges in court. does not seem to be saying that he is particularly worried about where it goes but you have to wonder, there is a chance of a real legal consequence for the former president. as to what that will be, we don't know. we have to wait. we have cameras set up, ready to go, hoping to see if we can hear from people inside the courtroom. the former president was not there. his legal team was. he is in new jersey. i bet he'll have some reaction probably on his social media in the hour. back to you. >> john: mark meredith for us there in west palm beach for the latest. mark, thank you. bring in bret baier, chief political anchor and anchor of

"special report." the judge has given the justice until next thursday to come up with some promised or at least some suggested redactions for this probable cause affidavit, and we don't know how extensive the redactions might be, bret, although we have seen in the past, particularly when it comes to cia and sometimes the national security council at the white house, that these redactions can be quite comical, the black ink extends throughout the entire page, and the justice department has made the case here that if you were to redact this probable cause affidavit there would be so littlest is that you would never get the context of what it was really all about. any idea how this might go? >> bret: well, first of all, it's going to take a long time. i mean, next thursday is a long time for a filing from the doj about what the redactions would look like and you've already

seen as you mentioned that foreshadowing from doj filing that they believe that the affidavit itself would be marked out so much that essentially would be a black piece of paper. so, you have the former president saying it should all go out. but we should point out in court the trump lawyers did not file a motion for that purpose. they didn't do that. didn't have to. but they could have had that choice to file a motion. they didn't. the judge says he's not inclined to unseal the entire affidavit, and so he wants to see from the justice department what exactly those redactions are and he says specifically be prepared to explain the redactions and defend them. bottom line is that this is not a quick process here, and if anybody thought that this was just going to be a magistrate saying poof, it's done, here it is, everybody can see it, that's not happening. we'll see the next step.

>> aishah: bret, the doj has said they would be ok with releasing the cover sheet, things like that, etc., which i don't think the media, which is the other party in this case, would be ok with. i mean, we are really trying to get to the bottom of what happened here, why the federal agents felt it was necessary to raid a former president's home. so i imagine there is going to be some back and forth and the judge did say that the media could object to the doj redactions and they can appeal his ruling. my question to you is, i mean, couldn't some of this have been prevented if attorney general merrick garland had just come out in those first couple of days and just given the media and everyone else and the trump team just a generic synopsis of what they were looking for and why they went in there without it getting to this point? >> bret: yeah, i think you're

right, aishah, i think more transparency at the front end could have prevented some of this. but really the heart of the matter is what they are looking for specifically and how they got to the determination to use the force they did in the search or raid of mar-a-lago. and the government is arguing because of the witnesses or witness or witnesses used in the grand jury, that it suggests maybe part of other investigations. they don't want any of that revealed, or the sensitive nature of the information, classified information. so, we are going to have to see what they come back with with the redactions. i do think that this kind of plods on here and the whim of media organizations and a response from the former president on truth social and that's probably where we will be for the next week. >> john: as aishah was pointing

out, she has and many of us have issued requests for probable cause affidavit contents. in this case you've got targeted investigation in rather unusual move recommending this come out. former president trump put out a statement last friday he said not only will i not oppose the release of the documents, i'm encouraging the immediate release of those documents because bret, when it comes down to it, i mean, this is as much political as it is legal. and right now it's just these confidential sources for the media who are framing this whole thing and president trump wants to get the real story out there. >> bret: well, sure, and listen. the trump people come from the perspective, look through the prism of what happened with the russia investigation, and how we went through almost a year and a half, two years of anonymous leaks that were the big thing that was going to happen, and then it did not happen. it did not materialize. they look at it through that

prism. so, they feel very familiar in this spot that now there's something secret happening and it's going to be, you know, played out on the front pages of papers. so, which is why they are arguing for that. you know, i don't think that there is going to be a decision that all of this comes out in the end. i think that this judge is very cautious. we should point out, once the final decision is made, the lawyers could appeal it and they could go to the 11th circuit and appeal this magistrate's decision. they could short circuit that and go right to the supreme court, but the supreme court has not in the past gone to that fast track, they usually look to the lower courts to make that decision. so there is a battle here legally. in the meantime, whatever investigation is continuing does so a pace and there are a number of them as you all know. >> aishah: and bret, the underlying point, the trump team would argue this, hasn't this

turned into a very unfair situation for the former president? he's practically on trial now in the court of public opinion. his team does not have all the answers as to why. they are not able to put together a defense either without knowing the details of what's in this affidavit. so isn't this just, the way that it's playing out, it's just turning ugly, a little messy. >> bret: he has not been indicted yet and they have to make that decision at some point and i would argue and a lot of experts we talk to say it has to happen pretty quickly for that decision of whether they are moving forward or not. so, as this is playing out, whether the affidavit is coming out or not, that decision is going to be made whether to charge a former president of the united states, and once you get to that sentence, a former president of the united states who potentially could be the political opponent in 2024 to the current president who

overrides him is the head of the administration of this doj, even though there is separation in how they approach the law, very political to john's point and we have not been in this position before, so that makes all of this unique. but in this time there could be a decision what the doj is going to do. >> john: so in the political realm, you know, president trump in the statement castigated the fbi calling it a political weaponization of law enforcement, probably more directed at the doj than anything, although he did say the documents were drawn up by radical left democrats and possible future political opponents. but this idea of really going after the fbi which mike pence just the other day opposed and said was a bad idea, does that serve president trump well if he decides to go ahead and run in 2024? he could potentially use this as

a launch pad to galvanize the base. could it potentially also backfire on him? >> bret: yeah, and we have talked to a number of people on capitol hill and around washington and other republican leaders who believe, who were really heartened when they heard former president trump say he wanted to turn down the temperature and that his people were reaching out to doj to do anything that they possibly could. in the next day or two, there were a couple of tweets that definitely did not feel like turning down the temperature on the fbi, and the pushback for vice president pence about what he said about not denigrating the fbi and the men and women who work there on social media and other places was intense from trump world. so i think it bodes well politically to turn down the temperature, but some element of stirring the pot still. >> aishah: we are going to break away, stand by for us, a fox

news alert, looks like deanna sholman, the attorney representing the media organizations is stepping. >> accept any briefing of the department of justice on the redactions. he will review those materials and he will enter an order specifying what information, if any, will remain sealed and inaccessible to the public. >> what's your response to the government saying following the redactions made there may be nothing substantial left behind? >> well, i think -- i think mr. tobin made the right response there. it is up to the public to determine what is meaningful in this investigation. certainly florida has had its share of high profile investigations. we went through casey anthony, george zimmerman, and if the court is inclined to issue a

document with just a first line redacted or unredacted, then that's what we get, and it's up to the public and through its surrogate, all of you, to figure out what the meaning is behind that but not the government's job to tell the public what is meaningful in terms of release of its own information. >> what is the response to the argument that some are so specific that they would be outed or identified by virtue -- >> i think judge reinhart is going to protect the identity of confidential informants, that's probably the right outcome here. none of the media interveners want to jeopardize, and information that would lead to the disclosure of their identity is kept secret. however, it is important to note that simply saying somebody works for a particular agency is not sufficient. perhaps saying their title, their post, number of years they have been in position, and other

identity may get us there but the fact there are confidential informants working with the government is not something i would think is subject to protection. >> anything new from that -- >> today on -- you are probably not going to get anything new from it, but what today -- today what was unsealed is the motion to seal the search warrant, you all have the underlying search warrant and the order on the motion to seal the search warrant. i would expect the motion to be fairly generic and describing we have a search, your honor, we would like you to seal and we agree your search warrant should be sealed. >> anyone mention the waning credibility of the fbi and source of the affidavit? >> nobody mentioned the waning credit of the fbi specifically. however, mr. tobin did make the argument that this is a proceeding that's about the credibility of all the players, so whether the judge is doing his job, whether the doj is doing its job, that is the

proper function of these proceedings and why the public is entitled to access that.enter is the public interest. we are entitled to monitor the affairs of our governmental levels and that is the interest in this essence that we are asserting today. >> does the doj offer any clues what could be in the affidavit today? >> they didn't offer clues as to what's in that affidavit in particular but they did tell us that it includes a road map for the investigation as it stands right now. it explains the scope and breadth of that application, or that investigation, excuse me, and it has a number of confidential informants, and witnesses whose ongoing participation may be jeopardized by disclosure. it's very important for judge reinhart to look specifically at the search warrant affidavit in light of those, you know, in light of those statements that those types of categories are

included in the materials. >> to clarify, once they come back with what we want -- what we say can be redacted, is that automatically released or does the judge still have to say look, i'm going to decide whether it's going to be released. reading an article that characterizes it one way and not the other, i want to make sure i understand that. >> that's actually a very good question for those of you not inside the court hearing. judge reinhart actually put forth a procedure he's going to use in this case. august 25th the government will propose the r redactions to search warrant and affidavit, and file a brief explaining why they are requesting the redactions. at that point judge reinhart will review the requesting redactions and documents and he'll make a decision. if he agrees with the government he'll enter into order agreeing with the government and we will get whatever it is that he -- that the government and he have determined should be released. if he disagrees with the government's requested redactions, judge reinhart is

the ultimate decisionmaker here, so he will enter an order disagreeing with the government's redactions but give the government time to appeal the order before he releases the search warrant and its affidavit. if he didn't do that and it became public, the government would essentially lose its right to appeal. so if he disagrees with the government's redactions, he will give a chance to appeal the order before he releases the order and affidavit for the public. >> as far as timeline, when do you think you will see what is released? >> it's hard to determine. in access cases, they tend to take a fast track. department of justice said they only needed a week to submit redactions, that was very kind of them. often times we see a much longer period. i think judge reinhart understands the public interest in these materials so i think he'll make a swift decision. i'm not going to hold him to a certain time frame, i just don't know. and then if there is appeal, i

think you will have members of the public and press pushing for an expedited appellate review system so the public can have access to whatever it is that the court is going to rule we can have access to rather quickly. in sum, it won't be months, but not a week or two either. anybody else? >> thank you. >> ok. yeah, thanks, guys. deanna shullman. >> aishah: deanna shullman, representing the media organizations who filed in court, a request to release the probable cause affidavit in relation to the raid on former president trump's mar-a-lago home and the judge, judge reinhart reacting today, finding that the entire affidavit should not be sealed. he's given the government a

week, so a week from today, that's august 25th, by noon, to submit some redactions to that affidavit. now the question is, john, how much does the doj redact? >> john: i've seen plenty of books redacted by the cia that come out and all you get is pages and pages of black redactions. jonathan turley, fox news contributor and constitutional law attorney. so we do know what was unsealed today. and that was the motion to seal the affidavit, and the order of the motion, order of motion to seal it. so, that's not going to tell us a whole lot. deanna shullman did say, she did not get clues what's in the affidavit, it presents a road map for the investigation. includes information about confidential informants and witnesses. this was a rather solemnonic decision, seeking a middle ground here. >> jonathan: it was. as we were discussing before the hearing, i said that i have no

doubt that portions of this affidavit could be released in redacted form and the court seems to have reached the same conclusion. if you are familiar with the affidavits, there are sections that would not inherently damage an investigation because it's information known already to the other side. for example, communications that were made leading up to the raid, some of that might be able to be disclosed. i was -- sort of noted a couple points of what shullman said what occurred in the courtroom and maybe slightly inartful or it may be something we have to be concerned with. first, she did refer to multiple confidential informants, not just one. she used the plural at one point. but i'm more interested in the fact that the process she described was that if the judge disagrees with the redaction proposal of the department of justice, he will issue the order saying i disagree and then allow them to appeal. the suggestion is that nothing would then be released.

that would mean even a small disagreement with the government over one section could keep all of the sections from being disclosed. the alternative is to say well, g we -- i agree with you on 1-9, i'm going to go ahead and release that material, but i'm telling you i disagree with you on number 10 and you can appeal that. a very different process in terms of what we would get in the short-term. because the way that shullman described it, i'm not criticizing here, she was in front of cameras, not sure if that's how the order was written. but if it is going to be written that way, you could have the entirety of the affidavit held up over the appeal over a portion of the disagreement. so, that's something we have to sort of look at. this is not like the normal fight, you know. national security cases, including one now, when we have fights over the release of information i'm allowed to see the classified information in a

skiff and i can then correspond with the judge and the prosecutors as to why i think the department of justice is being overbearing or overextending its claims. so it's not an ex parte communication, it's not just between counsel and the court. the reason that's important, i likely have a lot more information than the court does on what is classified as the cleared attorney but also what is legally permissible to be released. this is going to be different because he's not going to have the input of an adversarial lawyer. he's going to have very likely to be a very aggressive redaction proposal from the department of justice and he's going to have to eyeball it and make a decision. i just don't buy that. now, can you do that without adversarial input, yeah, he can because a lot of these affidavits as i said have sections that i would think could be released in a redacted form. but that is one difference in this process than what we

normally deal with insensitive criminal cases. >> john: all right, we will find out next thursday what the government is proposing. jonathan turley, thank you. and we will be right back. stay with us. ly, it's a new day in america. air force, pararescue, five years. home values are at record highs. the newday 100 va loan lets veterans borrow up to 100% of their home's total value. and take an average of $60,000 cash. 25% more cash than they'd get at a bank. united states marine corps, aviation maintenance, five years. that's why veterans from every branch... united states army, military police, eight years. ...from every specialty... marines, infantry, four years. ...from every length of service... united states army, strategic intelligence officer, twenty-eight years.

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>> aishah: and we continue to

follow breaking news out of florida, a federal judge has ruled to unseal some of the documents behind the raid of mar-a-lago. let's bring in byron york, fox news contributor, byron, sounds like judge bruce reinhart is trying to deal a compromise here, trying to give the media some information that they are seeking, but also giving the doj some time, a week to redact the documents that they feel may hurt this investigation or other investigations. your first reaction or take on the decision by the judge. >> the news was better than we thought. a lot of people thought the judge would reject the idea of releasing this affidavit. so the fact that he's going to release some of it is good news. now, is it going to be some tiny part of it that's inconsequential that we already know, it could be.

but this is a huge decision because the government's argument to keep the affidavit secret pretty much said if you read between the lines, we are investigating former president trump. we are deciding whether to indict former president trump and if you release the affidavit it will blow our case. the other side will know what we are doing. so the government has already told us this is a very, very big deal, both in its actions, that is the raid on mar-a-lago, and on paper in this argument to keep the affidavit secret. the good news is, the judge is at least going to take a look and release some of it. >> john: looking through here some of the quotes from court. government prosecutor jay brat posited this in terms of the argument from the doj to keep the affidavit sealed. he said that unsealing it would provide a road map of an ongoing investigation still in its early stages. he also said the country is in a volatile state and releasing the

names of witnesses or fbi agents would chill other witnesses who may still come forward. went on further to say this is not a precedent we want to set. the government is very concerned about the safety of witnesses in this case. but an attorney who argued on behalf of the washington post and other media organizations said that there are people who are looking to cite unrest who will look to pass off bogus information and the only antiseptic to that is the actual truth. so in this case, does getting the actual truth out there outweigh the government's argument about the state of the investigation and potential safety of witnesses of the case? what do you think? >> well, on getting the truth out, no surprise i'm on the media side here in the sense that it's hard to overstate how much we don't know what we are

talking about with these documents. we know they are classified at some various levels but have no idea what they are about. are they really, really serious, or are they less serious and perhaps examples of the government's overclassification of documents. we just don't know any of that. the justice department also has a bad situation here. there are reports they thought maybe they could pull off this raid and no one would notice? they could do it on a low key sort of way? the fact is we are less than 90 days before a big election. usually the justice department does not want to take any big action of a very political nature in that period, but here we are. we are gonna have to find out something about this case and in the absence of disclosure of this affidavit, we are going to have leaks and leaks and leaks followed by wild speculation that may or may not be based in fact. >> aishah: you know, byron, i've

been in the situation a couple times where i've had to fight in court to get documents and sometimes it's lasted years. this is actually a big surprise to get it so quickly, obviously. the ramifications of this case much bigger. deanna shullman, the attorney for the media organizations fighting for the document said at the end of the day it's up to the public here to determine what is meaningful and i take from that that this is a fight that's going to last quite a while, that the government will come back with some pretty big redactions in about a week to which then the media just has to deal with those, media organizations and it's up to the public really to weigh in as to whether we are ok and satisfied with that. politically speaking, we are less than 90 days away from the midterms. how do you see this going? how long do you expect this to go? >> well, i think politically speaking, it's bad for republicans for the reason i

said earlier which is it allows speculation to flourish. the absence of facts allows speculation to flourish. so i think we see actually the media and the trump organization kind of share an interest in this, and on the same side in this proceeding in favor of more disclosure here because the less we have, i mean, just think about this. this is going to get more, closer and closer to the election, there will be democratic candidates who will attack their republican opponents saying there are supporters of president trump under criminal investigation by the justice department for possibly revealing the nation's highest secrets. imagine all that stuff, it writes itself. so, the more we know, the more we know, and it may be bad news for trump, we don't know, but the more we know, the better off we'll be. >> john: byron, great to get your thoughts. thanks for hanging with us on

this, appreciate it. >> thank you, john. >> john: let's bring in bret baier, chief political anchor and anchor of "special report," reading a note here from our team in west palm beach, tobin said the raid on mar-a-lago was one of the most significant law enforcement actions in the nation's history "the public interest could not be greater." if judge reinhart buys that argument, it may be difficult for the doj to try to sell him on extensive redactions. >> i agree with you, john. and i think it's going to be fascinating next thursday. we always seem to be punting to the next big decision or the next big shoe to drop, but that's it. and it depends on what the redactions look like if it goes forward. today was not an order, it's the next step. the order would come after that decision next thursday. search warrant affidavits are written by federal agents and

sworn to by federal agents before going before a judge. they often contain classified material as the doj filing says it does, and witnesses, witness or witnesses who have testified in front of a grand jury. these are almost never released before an indictment is put down. this is a different case, though. this is a former president of the united states, and the political implications, the public scrutiny of it changes the whole dynamic here and that's why we are where we are. it's going to take another week until we know what else is happening, but as for the political impact, i agree with byron. i don't think this is a great thing for republicans overall. the more that there is a focus on this, the less there is a focus on inflation and other things that were being talked about before this raid, and if you look at the polls, there has been a shift. i'm not saying directly because of the raid, but because perhaps there's, you know, other things happening that had taken the

attention. that said, we are getting closer to the midterms and really does not start until after labor day. that's when people focus in and the ads starts flowing. >> aishah: and bret, that's the question you just led into it perfectly, i was going to ask you, it does not get talked about enough. the white house stays silent trying to keep the issue ten feet away because they want people to understand the doj functions separately from them, but it's so messy and so big, is it wise for the white house and administration to continue to stay silent? >> bret: well, whether it's wise or not politically, they have made that determination. i think they are going to continue to do that, aishah, i don't sense there are any comments from the white house here because they will say it's a total doj operation. hard to believe that that level of a raid and search didn't make it some way, shape or form to somebody that knew it was going

on. but that's what they say, and i think that's how it's going to stay until we get to the next step here. now, if and when there is a next step and charges come, this white house is going to have to weigh in. >> john: right, yeah, no question about that, and if charges do come, katie bar the door, you are going to be hearing from everybody. bret, thanks for joining us. see you tonight at 6:00 for "special report." >> bret: you bet. >> aishah: we are going to continue to follow this breaking news. incredible, though, i was not expecting a decision to come out this quickly, but i think the judge is trying to compromise between both parties here, to give a bit here and giving the doj some time to figure out what's important and what they can release and i'm interested to find out how much of this is going to be redacted. like you said, we have seen a lot of papers throughout the year -- >> john: i can't remember what book it was, but black page after black page after black

page and it was laughable. but the timing of this as well, the 25th, next thursday, brings us almost within ten weeks of the midterm elections and they say a day is a long time in politics, a week is forever. but ten weeks is a period of time in which you can stretch something out and make a political impact with it. >> aishah: john, good to be with you. "the story" is next. thanks for having >> thanks. good afternoon from washington. i'm gillian turner in for martha maccallum. breaking now, a florida judge has ruled portions of the affidavit connected to the raid of mar-a-largo could be unsealed as soon as next week. this would be the underlying information the doj used to get the search warrant. former president trump says he wants all the information out insisting it will prove the search was unjustified. the doj says releasing more information could