we'd vote, be there for a couple of days and leave on thursday. what if we were working a full week? what if we were actually working on legislation as opposed to judicial nominees? that's what the senate is supposed to be doing, and i see a real only amongst democrats, but amongst republicans. >> all right, senator tina smith of minnesota. thank you for taking time tonight. that is "all in" on this thursday night. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris. thanks, my friend. much appreciated. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. we are less than a week from the inauguration of president joseph r. biden. the country, of course, still reeling from the mob attack on the capitol last week by president trump's supporters, as more and more people are criminally charged for being a part of that attack. we're going to talk about some of those new arrests and new charges tonight, but it remains an open question, of course, what kind of repercussions the current president may face for inciting that attack, whether through the still-ongoing impeachment process, as he faces

a senate impeachment trial, or whether through potential criminal prosecution. but with all eyes on washington right now, where the national guard is massing by the tens of thousands to protect the capitol in advance of next week's inauguration, we're going to start our news tonight with something that actually happened quite far from d.c. today, something that, nevertheless, i think helps with the story of how we got to this chaotic and violent national moment. i want to start tonight in a county courtroom this afternoon. in the proceedings in this county courtroom this afternoon, proceedings because of the pandemic had to happen over zoom, just like all of our work meetings and school meetings do, but still hard to get used to seeing that be the case for court proceedings. nevertheless, here it was. >> okay, okay. good morning! can you hear me over there?

>> yes, your honor. >> yes, your honor. >> okay. i've got to get the attorney general in another window here. just a moment. then we're going to start. okay, here it goes. all right, there. attorney general, can you hear me? >> i can, your honor. yes, your honor. thank you. >> all right. everybody can hear me. and everybody can see me, i assume. if for any reason you can't hear me or you can't see me at any time during these proceedings, let me know, raise your hand, indicate in some fashion. this is case number 21t00046sm, people of the state of michigan versus richard dale snyder. >> people of the state of michigan versus richard dale snyder. i mean, the need to do everything by online meeting during the pandemic has rendered everything a little bit like out of remove -- literally, out of

remove. but really, it's strange, right? serious court proceedings start with judges saying, can you hear me now? and the assistant attorney general forgetting to unmute himself before he starts talking, like, you know. court proceedings are solemn for a reason. this does inject a little benny hill aspect to it, but it's what we've got now. in this court proceeding today in genesee, michigan, in the box in the upper right, that's labeled "genesee jail booth 2," the guy with the white hair on the right side in that upper-right box, that is richard dale snyder, who you heard in the title of the court case. he's better known as rick snyder. until recently, he was the republican governor of the great state of michigan. and it's not every day that you see a former governor hauled before a judge to face criminal charges. in fact, in the state of michigan, it has never happened before. no michigan governor or former michigan governor has ever before been charged with a crime for his or her alleged conduct while serving as governor, until today.

two-term republican governor rick snyder of michigan is charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty. he has pled not guilty. according to the indictment, rick snyder, quote, as governor of the state of michigan, a public officer, did willfully neglect his mandatory legal duty to protect citizens of the state against disaster and/or emergency, when the governor had notice of a threat of a disaster and/or emergency in the city of flint. flint, michigan's lead poisoning disaster, that manmade disaster, when rick snyder's state government poisoned an entire city with lead. and on top of that, apparently, caused a legionnaires' disease outbreak, the death toll for which will probably never be fully known. that manmade disaster started seven years ago. it remains one of the most outrageous stories of fatally malevolent, terrible governance in modern u.s. history, and it has been an open question for years now whether governor snyder, himself, the man who ran the government that flipped the

switch, that pushed the button to poison flint, whether he would face personal criminal liability for what happened. and you know, the thing about the flint disaster, the thing that drew us to report the story in the first place, the thing about it that helps us understand the disaster that we're now in as a country, i think, is that the story of flint was really the story of giving up on democracy. at the start of snyder's first term as michigan's new republican governor, a decade ago, rick snyder signed legislation that allowed him to just overturn an election anywhere in michigan he wanted to. yeah. in your town, you could elect your mayor and your town council and all that, but if rick snyder didn't like the people who you elected, by that legislation, he gave himself the power to reject the choices you and your town made in your election. he gave himself the power to declare an emergency, ignore the results of any democratic election, and instead, just

install his own hand-picked person to come in and run your town or your city or your school board, without any need to have any pesky answering to the voters. people kept making the wrong choices with their democracy. and so, by rule, by order, from the governor of the state, democratic choices would be overruled. they would be done away with because he knew better. and the people he gave himself the power to install were called emergency managers. the idea being that they would step in at the governor's say so, fix some sort of emergency, and then hand back the reins of government to democracy, to local democratically elected officials. that was the idea, in theory. but of course, most of the time, these emergency managers, once they were installed, they ended up just staying indefinitely. so there was always some reason to consider it an ongoing emergency. and so, town after town after town in michigan, under the republican, souped-up version of emergency management, town after town started getting a

nonelected overseer brought in, chosen by the governor, a person who could make basically autocratic, solo, personal decisions by fiat. no need to answer to the government. no need to answer to the voters. local elections that purportedly were designed to choose local decision-makers, the results of local elections no longer counted. and yes, the towns this was happening to that kept having their elections nullified and overseers installed by the governor instead -- yes, as you have probably already surmised, they were probably, for the most part, majority black or largely black towns. a collected blog, a progressive blog about michigan politics -- it's essential reading in michigan politics -- they first dug into the census data and proved that michigan republicans' souped-up emergency manager law was disproportionately being used to

take away small-d democracy away from black voters in michigan. they were right about that. in 2015, two years into the unilateral control, half of the black voters in the state had no local democracy, had no local small-d democratic representation. yeah, they could, if they wanted to, go through the motions of voting for local officials, voting for a local mayor, voting for a local city council or school board, but those local officials they elected would have no power, no voice, no ability to actually do anything about local problems. that was taken away from them. and voters in michigan actually hated this. they hated this emergency manager law so much, they actually pulled together to get a referendum on the ballot to repeal the law statewide, and the referendum passed. the law was repealed. but again, that was a little too much small-d democracy for republicans in michigan, and so, rick snyder and the republican legislature there just passed a new version of the emergency management thing, except the new version of it made it virtually

impossible to repeal. and the results of taking away local democracy, overruling local democracy, and instead, installing these emergency managers, the results were dramatic. in detroit, the emergency manager there cut off water to tens of thousands of households that weren't able to keep up with their bills. it was a situation so horrifying, the united nations intervened to declare it a violation of those residents' most basic human rights. in flint, in what appeared to have been an effort to save money? the city, under its emergency manager, made a decision that flint would no longer get its water from the great lakes, where they always had. they, instead, would start getting their water from the local flint river. and they made the switch -- i'm going to understate it wildly here, though -- they made the switch improperly. among other things, river water is much more corrosive to pipes

than lake water is. but they ignored that. they didn't treat the water before they pumped it into the city and the city's water pipes, and that corrosive, untreated water, in a totally predictable way, basically destroyed the pipes in the city's water system, and that's what created the disaster. it created a number of disgusting consequences for the people of that city that were immediately apparent to them. the people of the city of flint could instantly tell there was something wrong with their water, as soon as it was switched. they besieged their local officials -- at least their local officials in name, to the extent that they had any -- they confronted the people who they thought ought to be in charge of these things, immediately, as soon as they saw the switch was made. but that's the beauty of having an emergency manager in place, right? democracy's no longer operative. you don't actually have to answer to anybody in that town. you weren't elected. you're not susceptible to them and their whims. you don't need to answer to

their needs. you were put in charge by a higher power. when the city council, the local elected officials voted overwhelmingly, 7-1, to switch the water source back to the old, cleanwater supply that they had and that they had never had trouble with before, the emergency manager appointed by governor rick snyder not only rejected what they said to do, he called their vote, quote, incomprehensible. he basically said, no, i don't care about this overwhelming vote from this city's elected officials, since they have no power. i'm not even going to take that under advisement. i think it's stupid. i overrule them. and that disastrous water switch and the refusal to listen to the people of flint about its consequences led to the mass poisoning of every kid in the city of flint, the mass poisoning of the people of that city. thousands of kids who will live for the rest of their lives with the consequences of having been poisoned by lead early in their life, having lead exposure in their drinking water when they're kids. it's something you don't grow

out of. it's something for which there's no magic antidote. the rick snyder administration ignored warnings about the lead. they attacked scientists and a local doctor who tried to warn residents about the lead. it was the same thing with the legionnaires' disease outbreak that was apparently caused by the same botched water switch. that outbreak killed at least 12 people. some estimates, though, put it as high as 70 people dead from that. and nobody in flint was warned about that outbreak for a full year. even as emails about it pinged around the highest levels of the snyder administration. they just didn't tell anyone. and now -- now, finally, governor rick snyder and many of the most-senior officials involved in the flint disaster have finally been indicted. these are their mug shots. from today. governor snyder indicted on two counts of willful neglect of duty. his former health director and chief executive indicted on nine counts of involuntary

manslaughter for deaths in the legionnaires' outbreak. snyder's former top adviser indicted for felony perjury, obstruction of justice and extortion for threatening a state-appointed research team investigating the legionnaires' outbreak. two flint emergency managers, including the guy who overruled the city council and told them it was incomprehensible that they wouldn't want to keep drinking the brown, lead-tainted water, he was indicted on multiple counts of misconduct in office. again, those are their mug shots. all of them have pled not guilty to all of the charges. governor rick snyder's lawyer today called the charges wholly without merit. and all of those people will have their day in court. they are all innocent until proven guilty. but this is part of what accountability looks like. rick snyder has been out of office for two years now. he still has to answer for what he did while he was there. he has to sit in genesee jail booth number 2, just like any other defendant, and plead his

case. the people versus -- excuse me, the people of the state of michigan versus richard dale snyder. but whatever happens in those court cases, remember that the flint disaster was caused by getting rid of democracy. it was the result of the evolution of the republican idea of governance in michigan, right? which in some ways is micro cosmic in terms of what counts for a theory of governance in the republican party today. oh, you have some dramatically elected officials. you've chosen to make decisions for you? that's nice. actually, we'll take over from here. doesn't matter what you voted for, who you voted for, we will take that power. and you know, rick snyder is gone from the governor's mansion in michigan. michigan voters pretty resoundingly rejected his republican attorney general who ran to succeed him and they elected democrat gretchen whitmer as their governor. but that problem, that toxic

core tenet of the republican idea of governance that we saw play out to disastrous, fatal effect under governor rick snyder, the democratic elections are no longer the ways we make decisions, that those are inefficient, unwise, that once you have the power to do it, you just take the power anywhere you want. dramatically elected officials are an obstacle to be overcome. that spirit is alive and well in michigan and now well beyond michigan, as we can all see. i mean, for the last year, as coronavirus has ravaged michigan, and in particular, the majority black city of detroit, and as governor whitmer has tried to use her powers as governor to prevent the spread of coronavirus and tried to keep the people of michigan safe, republicans in the legislature have done everything they can up to and including suing governor whitmer to throttle her efforts, to make it so that there can be no state action against covid. armed protesters swarmed michigan's state capitol multiple times this past spring.

at one point, lawmakers found themselves attempting to do their legislative business with multiple men with rifles looming over them from the balcony inside the capitol. ultimately, the armed mob forced the michigan capitol to shut down. when lawmakers returned to work, some brought their own security guards. after the november election, the trump campaign filed multiple lawsuits in michigan, trying to get joe biden's victory there overturned. specifically, they wanted all those votes from majority black detroit thrown out. they were all presumptively fraudulent, the trump team claimed. and the local board of canvassers in wayne county, where detroit is, went along with it, at least for a while. the republicans on that board for a time blocked the certification of that county's votes, apparently hoping they could throw the whole state to donald trump by disqualifying all those mostly black biden voters that they just presumed were frauds. i mean, trump tried this everywhere, but michigan was the place it actually worked for a second, right?

where the local officials actually started to go along, at least until there was overwhelming public backlash, got those republican board members to think better of it and recant and certify their votes. i mean, and at that point, michigan had only barely absorbed news about this, in the run-up to the election, the thwarted plot by right-wing extremists to kidnap and possibly execute governor whitmer, hatched by a rogue gallery of right-wing extremists who had surveilled her house and practiced making explosives in their backyards and studied the routes by which police might respond to an emergency at her house so they could head the police off and make sure they could get away with the governor before police could respond. some of those people implicated in that plot had been at the armed protests at the state capitol. but according to michigan's attorney general, their ambitions to topple the government went beyond just michigan. >> i think it's important to remember that, in terms of the

siege that we saw at the capitol in lansing last april, that, firstly, many of those, ultimately, were involved in the plot to kidnap and kill the governor, and that an alternative plot they had was actually to take over the state capitol and to either bomb it or to execute people by firing squad. but then, many of the people who were not arrested as part of the plot to kill the governor actually traveled to washington, d.c., and so, they were part of the events that took place at the capitol. i think that michigan was definitely ground zero. i think it was a dry run and people saw how very easy it was to essentially take over a state capitol building. and the lesson that they drew away from that was, why not try it at the nation's capitol? if we can do it in lansing, michigan, maybe we can do the same thing in washington, d.c. and they were right. >> michigan is ground zero. michigan as a dry run.

michigan has been a laboratory for this kind of anti-small d democratic right-wing politics for years now. and i'm not saying that michigan started all of it, but michigan has been a microcosmic experience of it. in michigan, part of what we have seen is that there's right-wing extremists, just like there are in lots of states, and something happens when right-wing extremists aren't bound anymore to a right-wing governing party, to a party that takes responsibility for governing and getting stuff done according to the will of the people. when you give up on governance, when you give up on democratic accountability and responsibility for your actions, and you're the political wing of the right, what do you expect to happen to the unhinged part of the right? the mooring that political activists, politically active people have in responsibility is

a mooring in small-d democratic governance, is a mooring in governance, is a mooring in getting things done, in being basically competent and being accountable to the voters when you're not. when you lose that mooring, the crazies among you can float off into territory that is hard to come back from. and so, we are seeing a specific form of accountability today in michigan, seeing those mug shots, seeing governor rick snyder, the first ever governor of that state brought up on criminal charges for his actions in office. but it took years. and meanwhile, michigan's been through the wars, almost literally. tonight we're going to speak with devlin barrett. he is the lead reporter at the "washington post" who broke the news today that dozens of people on a federal terrorist watch list who all traveled to the exact same place at the exact same time to the u.s. capitol last week, those dozens of people all on the same terrorist

watch list, all doing that same thing at the same time, apparently that was not enough to trip any red flags among law enforcement or federal authorities. "the new york times" and cnn reporting today that now, after the fact, federal law enforcement is looking at top-down planning for the assault on the capitol. reporter evan perez putting it at cnn -- quote, evidence uncovered so far, including weapons and tactics, suggests a level of planning that has led investigators to believe the attack on the u.s. capitol was not just a protest that spiraled out of control. as "the new york times" puts it tonight, federal authorities are now looking at the attack as derived from, quote, coordinated efforts by small groups of extremists. which means, basically, that they're looking at potentially prosecuting the capitol attack like a terrorism case. we shall see. republican congressman peter meijer, one of the republicans who voted yes to impeach president trump yesterday, told msnbc early in the day today that he and other members of congress are now buying body armor to protect themselves at

work. the house has advised members since the attacks that bulletproof vests are a reimburseible expense for congressional offices to try to protect their members. we expect now, we're told, roughly 21,000 armed national guard troops in washington to protect the inauguration next week. the fbi director has now personally briefed law enforcement agencies around the country, even as he's still not spoken to the public about the attack. but he has reportedly warned law enforcement agencies around the country about potential assaults on state capitols, armed assaults on state capitols by the president's supporters. in michigan, we were just talking about michigan -- they've just now changed their laws to prohibit the open carry of loaded weapons inside the michigan capitol in anticipation of the president's supporters being expected there this weekend. meanwhile, though, i've got to tell you, the trump white house is still stoking the fires. trump adviser peter navarro went

on fox today and literally kept insisting on the big lie that was the banner cause for the attack on the capitol. he told fox host maria bartiromo, quote, trump was legally elected on november 3rd. he told bartiromo he's never been more pissed off than he was by yesterday's impeachment because he still insists on the big lie that trump secretly won the election and biden didn't win the election and biden isn't legitimately the next president, so this is some terrible, terrible, stolen election that needs to be avenged. that's the trump white house still promoting that now, still hyping the mob, still trying to spread the big lie and justify what they did. i should mention, the fox host to whom he said these things did not argue with him. she did not disagree. this is still where fox is at. still promoting the cause of the mob and the rioters, who may be charged terrorists, depending on how the fbi's investigation goes. we are now six days out from the

biden inauguration. "the new york times" reporting today that even with all those national guard troops in washington, quote, high-ranking officials, including some at the pentagon, have maintained that they are still profoundly worried about inauguration day. even with 21,000 troops there. but there will be an inauguration day. there will be a swearing-in. that inauguration day may, in fact, be the same day that the impeachment trial starts against the outgoing president in the united states senate. that means chief justice john roberts may literally have to leave the capitol after swearing biden and harris in, so he can quickly head to the senate chamber to start his other job for the day, which will be overseeing the trial of president trump. it's going to be a big day for chief justice roberts. president-elect joe biden tonight laying out his covid plans for the start of his administration, after we have had multiple days this week with over 4,000 americans dead per day.

we'll be talking about the president-elect's $1.9 trillion plan to try to alleviate not only the pandemic, but its economic devastation, a boost to unemployment checks, a boost to the minimum wage. not just a boost, but what the biden camp says will be the first real investment in trying to roll out a national plan for vaccinations. they're now making clear that the trump white house never bothered to put a national plan for that together, let alone enact that plan once vaccines were available, so they have to build a national vaccination program from scratch after they get in there. so, there's a lot to get to tonight, and there's a lot that's going to become clear over the next few days, and some of it is about accountability for the violent catastrophe that the president and his supporters have brought on the capitol with their attack on the congress and the capitol building. but a lot of what needs to happen, and fast now, involves

government! involves good government, and you know, independent law enforcement and expert administration and legislation that makes sense and the ability not only to pass it, but to implement it. when politicians and politics succeed because they represent good ideas about how to respect and use government for good, well, maybe that will be our next chapter. maybe we can get somewhere. we've certainly seen what happens when the opposite is true. we are still surviving the outer reaches of that right now. lots to come tonight. stay with us. that right now. lots to come tonight stay with us

it was one of the more searing images from the capitol attack, a man walking the battle flag of the confederacy through the halls of the u.s. capitol. that flag never made it into the u.s. capitol during the confederacy and the war this country fought against it, but there he is! it took till donald trump was

president, but we got it! according to law enforcement, the dude with the confederate flag brought that flag to washington all the way from delaware, where he says he normally displays it outside his house. today, that man was arrested, charged with illegally entering the capitol and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on capitol grounds. his son was apparently with him inside the capitol that day. he is allegedly seen here smashing through a glass window of the building with his hands. he then climbed inside. he, too, has been arrested, and he, too, is being brought up now on federal charges. this man here was caught on video throwing a fire extinguisher at police officers. he allegedly hit three of them on the head. one of them was not wearing a helmet. according to the u.s. attorney's office, the man who allegedly battered the police with that fire extinguisher is himself a retired firefighter. he's now been arrested and is facing four federal charges, including assaulting police officers. pictures of this man were spread widely after his participation

in wednesday's attack. he was wearing a sweatshirt that said, "camp auschwitz." he's also now been arrested and is being brought up on several federal charges, including violent entry and disorderly conduct on capitol grounds. this man is easy to spot in a crowd because he's unusually tall. he's a former u.s. olympic swimmer, seen here towering over a crowd that was pushing into police. i believe that's in the rotunda. investigators referenced this video in their criminal complaint. they say it's how they were able to i.d. him. he's wearing his olympic team jacket there. he's arrested on charges including obstructing law enforcement and violent entry into the capitol. the man in the red sweatshirt here has also been arrested. he popped up on someone's live stream from inside a capitol office. here he is on the lawn, allegedly setting what appears to be a news crew's camera equipment on fire. same guy, same sweatshirt.

i mentioned the other night that a man was arrested after the capitol attack for threatening to shoot nancy pelosi in the head. the justice department has now released this picture of what they found inside his car that day. i'm now going to show a short video clip that's a little bit sensitive. it's quite violent. we have showed it to you before and warned you ahead of time when we did so. i am just giving you this second to warn you ahead of time again now, in case you do not want to see it. okay, it is this upsetting angle from the steps of the capitol. we, again, showed this for the first time a couple days ago. this shows a mob of trump rioters pulling d.c. police officers down the capitol steps and stomping and beating them mercilessly. one officer is beaten by a number of different men wielding instruments like crutches and flag poles. one of the men allegedly wielding a flag pole in that video, seen here, repeatedly hitting that officer. he was just arrested late this

afternoon. in a video obtained by the fbi, he's reported to have said before the rally, quote, everybody in the capitol is a treasonist traitor. death is the only remedy for what's in that building. and then he appears to beat a capitol d.c. police officer to death with a flag pole to which an american flag is affixed. more than 70 people have been arrested for their roles in last week's violent attack on congress. prosecutors say we could expect hundreds more arrests as well as potentially charges of seditious conspiracy, charges that could come with decades-long prison terms. with each one of these new arrests, though, we are starting to get a filled-in picture, not just of what happened on wednesday and who traveled from around the country to be part of it, but who may have been behind it, who may have been organizing it, including the worst ways in which it played out. and we have some important, new news on that front coming up next, courtesy of a scoop tonight in the "washington post." stay with us. tonight in the "washington post." stay with us

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this was the unsettling front-page scoop of "the washington post" this afternoon. the headline -- dozens of people on fbi terrorist watch list came to d.c. the day of capitol riot. quote, the majority of the watch-listed individuals in washington that day are suspected white supremacists whose past conduct so alarmed investigators that their names had been previously entered into the national terrorist screening database, a massive set of names flagged as potential security risks. now, this is not the no-fly list that keeps people from boarding airplanes. for one thing, this is a larger database of people. people who are on it aren't automatically barred from any public or commercial spaces, but all that said, it is still a shocking revelation. why exactly do they put people on a watch list? what's a watch list for if it's not going to trigger any sort of alarm when dozens of people who are all on that same list, all for the same reason, all travel to convene at the same place at

the same time? if that doesn't trigger the watch list's utility, what does? reporter devlin barrett and his colleagues at the "post" report tonight that current and former law enforcement officials are now arguing that the presence of so many watch-listed individuals in one place, without more robust security measures to protect the public is another example of the intelligence failures preceding last week's fatal assault that sent lawmakers running for their lives. joining us now is devlin barrett. he covers national security for the "post." he's one of the reporters who broke this story eller today. i should also note devlin had a scoop earlier this week detailing an internal fbi report issued the day before the attack on the capitol that warned that extremists were preparing to travel to d.c. to commit violence and what they called war. mr. barrett, i know it's an incredibly busy time, given that this is your beat. thanks very much for taking time to talk to us. >> good to be here, rachel. thanks for having me. >> there's been controversy over the years and real civil

liberties concerns and lots of glitches and worries about various watch lists that we've come to learn about as americans, particularly since 9/11. what's this list that all these dozens of people were on who ended up at the capitol attack? >> so, this list, the tsdb, is shared primarily between fbi and the department of homeland security, and it's very important to understand, i mean, this is sort of, in some ways, a throwback issue to the post-9/11 era, when a lot of people thought watch lists would, you know, protect them from everything and prevent threats from ever coming to fruition. you know, watch lists are a tool and they're an information-gathering tool and they're an analysis tool. they're not perfect by any stretch, and you have to do a fair bit of analysis and understanding, and they're still not going to predict the future for you. however, what i think is interesting about this situation and what happened with these

people on this watch list, is that it's part of a larger conversation going on inside the fbi and some other federal agencies about whether or not more could and should have been done before january 6th. >> well, do the fbi and homeland security and whatever other relevant agencies may see this as their remit, did they believe that they had set up systems that would raise a red flag, that would sound an alarm, that would signal something that needed more attention from them, if multiple flagged extremists traveled from all over the country to the same place at the same time? did they think they had a system that would alert them to that as a problem, and it turns out, those alarms didn't go off, or did they know that they didn't have capacity to monitor extremists in that way? >> well, i think two things happened. one, it worked in some instances. we know that the fbi went and

knocked on doors before the event, and to certain extremists that they had sort of been keeping tabs on or interested in, and gently suggested, you know, it's not a good idea for you to go to washington. so, we know it worked in some instances. but it's not fool-proof. it's not perfect. and what we're told is a number of folks who are of concern to the government or have been of concern to the government, traveled to this anyway. that's obviously a concern. and i think there's going to be a number of discussions going forward about, you know, are we not combining this information fast enough? are we not contemplating the degree of danger that some of these people pose? because look, there's hundreds and thousands of people on this particular list. it is not practical to track them all, all the time. so, the important question for investigators is, which ones do we care most about? that, i think, is part of the conversation where they may ultimately decide they have to recalibrate that answer.

>> all right. and when they move in aggregate, how can our systems be set up to let us know so that we don't have to be watching each one of them individually, but when we see lots of them all move in the same direction at once, that tells us something. it's a -- i mean, it's a systems problem, but it's a fascinating look at how law enforcement approaches this. devlin barrett, national security reporter for the "washington post," thank you for helping us understand this reporting. i appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >> all right. we've got much more ahead tonight. we're going to be joined by montana senator jon tester ahead. stay with us. montana senator jon tester ahead. stay with us