colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night. >> i did not know it before today. apparently, when they launched it, they made a movie commercial for it. they called it the beacon of freedom. this is a thing that i knew existed. i had no idea they launched it with this short film, but it is worth watching now. it's only at 20 seconds or so. watch this. ♪ ♪ ♪

>> all right, first of all, the idea of something being from the desk of someone, and that thing also being a fast moving a nothing that requires photography from space in order to show it, that's kind of a weird mixed message. because what's like that that comes from a desk? but this is the ad that they put out to launch the new public platform for donald trump's desk. yes, he used to be president. but now, he's at his house in florida. a rising, a beacon of freedom, that is a place street from his desk. where you can speak freely and safely. or maybe where he can speak freely and safely. since it's his own desk, and nobody else actually gets to speak. there they literally launch this thing as a beacon of freedom. less than a month ago. former president donald trump launched a website and they put out that movie trailer, exciting at, to launch it.

but then it turns out what the website was was him just putting little statements on there. he's banned from social media platforms for promoting violence and undermining democracy. so, he just opened this thing, started this website where he puts little statements out. most of them were about how he believed he secretly still the real president. and he'll be put back in office someday. today, that little experiment, that beacon of freedom, burned up. came to an end. this was the fairly brutal headline and lead in the washington post about it today. quote, trump ends blog after 29 days, infuriated by measly readership. upset that it was being mocked to furlough traffic, trump ordered his team tuesday, to put the block out of its misery. there is the lead. former president donald trump's blog celebrated by advisers as a beacon of freedom, that would keep him relevant, is dead. it was 29 days old. in march, trump advisor jason

miller told fox news as trump's new social media platform would be revealed within three months and that it would draw tens of millions of people to become the hottest ticket in social media. he told fox news quote, it's going to completely redefine the game. the washington post analysis of online data last month found that trumps site was actually attracting fewer visitors than the pet adoption service pet finder, and the recipe site, the lush. the blocks prospects had not improved since. even though trump had taken to writing on it more, the new analysis shows. trump did not like that his blog was being marked as a loser. upset by these reports, highlighting its measly readership, trump ordered his team to put the block out of its misery. o put the block out of its >> you hate to see it. very sad. very sad. but presumably. he will be back. there was a little bit of a rumor control problem today, where people believed falsely, that trump's accounts had been

reinstated on facebook and on instagram. that was not true. but yes, he's excluded from all social media and his blog failed. his effort to change the game. to completely redefine the game with his own platform that would have tens of millions of viewers, it failed. and it didn't last a month. so, what that says in terms of the presidents influence in the social media world, the presidents influence online, the presidents ability to magically communicate with people so effectively. which the mainstream media has been telling us about for five or six years. it's something. so we're watching that to see what the fury releases there. tonight, the state of ohio just announced another 1 million dollar winner in the lottery drawing that is running for people who agreed to get vaccinated against covid-19. a man dame jonathan carlile from toledo, ohio, one the 1 million dollar price, tonight.

as a vaccinated ohioan. a young woman named was away vincent of mayfield village, ohio, won an all inclusive for your college scholarship. including tuition and room and board and books, and everything all because she is vaccinated. and their names were entered into that drawing. and the facsimile in ohio dry. ohio is the state that started the ball rolling with offering these totally over the top prizes as incentives for people to go get the vaccine. it has proven to be a success. ohio leading the way on this. they seriously boosted their own vaccine uptake numbers. particularly in the age groups that they were targeting. and now, states all over the country are starting to do similar giver ease and lotteries. now as of today, it's gone national. today at the white house, president biden announced a whole overwhelming list of things that are being donated, as rewards or incentives. or even prizes for people who get vaccinated. everything from a chance to win

a free free cruise. tickets to the next super bowl. tickets to the next daytona 500. free tickets to major league baseball games. and a lot of games, you can even get your vaccination shots right there at the game. plus, you can win free tickets to other games. there are free xboxes then given away. free groceries for a year. there's an airline giving away free flights for a year. anheuser bush says today they will buy everyone in the country a beer, while the country hits the goal of 70% of american adults having at least one shot. the four biggest childcare providers in the country will offer free childcare to you, while you go get your vaccine. or if you feel poorly after you get your vaccine, they'll cover your child care responsibilities at that point, too. they're rolling out a big program at the white house for black barbershops and black hair salons, to not only promote vaccines, but in many cases to administer them to. there's a college vaccination challenge program they are rolling out. the idea is, to try to get to

that 70% threshold of all adults having at least one vaccine shot by this time next month. by the 4th of july. right now, 12 states out of 50 have reached that threshold. 12 states out of 50 have 70% or more of their adults vaccinated. the overall rate in the country as of today is not over 70%. it's 62.8%, according to the cdc. so this month is the big push to try to get us over the line. to get a number 7% of adults in the country vaccinated within the next month. and this is interesting, this didn't get as much attention today from president biden's remarks. but they're asking americans to volunteer this month to help get more of our fellow americans vaccinated. they said up the website at we can do this dot hhs.gov, if you go to we can do this, there's a whole bunch of different things you can sign up for their. you can sign up to be trained on how to talk to your family members and neighbors about the

benefits of getting vaccinated. you can sign up to do a phone bank. to call people, to ask them if they need help original vaccination. or if they need their questions asked answered about a vaccination. you can also register to help at a vaccination of it in your town. all sorts of stuff. we can do this. it's interesting, there's not very many things in this country that we care enough about as a country that we are willing to devote free beer to it. [laughs] let alone free super bowl tickets. and free million dollar prizes. and free college scholarships and all the rest of it. but, if anything can get us across that threshold, it's probably a national call for volunteers to help do this for your country. paired with free veered there for everyone if we do it. that's kind of the perfect set of incentives, right? in ohio and california and oregon, it's these cash prices up to 1 million and a half dollars. in some states, it is college

color ships. including ohio, new york. in west virginia, they've given away shotguns and customize pick up trucks. in minnesota, i kid you not, you could get a free fishing license if you're vaccinated. which makes me wonder how expensive a fishing licenses in minnesota anyway? but all over the country, all different ways, they are pulling out all of the stops. and if the country can actually pull together in the same direction on this for a month, aiming at july 4th, having 70% of the country vaccinated, we it would really be something for us as a country. it would be bragging rights for sure. it would be a collective endeavor we'd all get to brag about the positive. of course, as a bonus, maybe will all survive the fall and winter next year. willit's interesting to watch te news develop today. it will be really interesting to see, i think in particular the voluntary response. but also the vaccine uptake response. to so many private entities and public entities pulling in the

same direction to get those numbers up. tonight, the fbi put out a statement formally attributing responsibility for the cyberattack that shut down one fifth of all u.s. and beef production in the last few days. the largest meatpacker in the world, the largest beef producer in this country, the gigantic company called jbs. they've got production facilities all over this country. all their production facilities were all shut down as of yesterday, because of this ransomware attack that the company this week. the fbi now says tonight, that attack was perpetrated by organized crime group based in, see with me now, based in russia. it seems like they all are. it's a group that's called, depending on how you pronounce it, revil group. and in any case, it rhymes with evil. i'm not an expert in this stuff. the fbi also in their statement of attribution tonight, used the name -- i'm sure i am saying that

wrong. it's a russian derived word. they're also using that name along with revil group to describe the group. listen, i'm sure i am saying them wrong. it's not like they won't pronounce able memorable americanize name. anything that rhymes with evil is pretty catchy when you're an organized crime group. here's what the fbi says tonight in their statement attributing blame for the jbs attack to the script. he says quote, we've attributed the jbs attack to revil and are working diligently to bring the threat actors to justice. we continue to focus our efforts on imposing risk and consequences and holding the responsible cyber actors accountable. a cyber attack on one is an attack on all of us. we encourage any entity who is a victim of a cyberattack to immediately notify the fbi through one of our 56 field offices. one question is of course, what

does the fbi do if you do call one of their field offices and tell them that you've been hit with a ransomware attack. it seems like there's no magic bullet from stopping these things from happening. according to the new york times tonight, quote revil is one of the most prolific of the 40 ransomware organizations that cybersecurity experts track. the group is among the dozens of ransomware groups that enjoy safe harbor in russia, where they are really arrested are extradited for their crimes. one of affiliates it was a group called darkside which was responsible for the ransomware attack on colonial pipeline. a conduit for nearly half the gas in jet fuel to the american east coast. after that colonial pipeline attack a few weeks ago, which of course was a major creek in the supply of gas injectable in the country. and cloth gas shortages in multiple states over multiple days. you might remember after that attack on the colonial pipeline resolved, we learned that the company that operates colonial pipeline actually did pay the ransom. they paid millions of dollars

in ransom to darkside. to try to get their operations back online. it still didn't stop that pipeline from being shut down for six full days, nearly a week. we might also remember that after that pipeline attack was dissolved, darkside announced it was shutting itself down. they said they had lost access to their servers. they said they've even lost access to their money online. implying that maybe they even lost control of the ransom money that colonial pipeline paid them to just get the attack stopped. that announcement from darkside that they were taking themselves out of the game, taking themselves down. they had essentially been dismantled by hostile forces, that led to lots of speculation that the u.s. government might have basically counter attacked against that group. in retaliation for them taking out this big piece of critical american infrastructure. interestingly, the biden administration denied that. they denied that u.s. cyber command or any other u.s. agency had anything to do with taking darkside off line, after darkside mounted that attack. so, interesting open question.

who did punch back at darkside? after the colonial pipeline attack, taking their service off line. taking their ability to operate and effectuate leads ransomware attacks. potentially even taken away their money. who did that? if it was in the u.s. government, don't know. did that punch back actually happen? was darkside lying about having all of their resources taken off line and losing all of the ransom money? where they lying about that just because they wanted to take the heat off of themselves, because they got so much negative attention for that very consequential attack? we don't know. it's interesting though. now that we've got another major attack and major piece of important american infrastructure, when the announcement was made after the colonial pipeline attack that darkside was dissolving itself. that their systems had all been taken off line and no longer going to exist. the ending entity that announce all of that was revil, this other criminal hacking group also based in russia that is no

blamed not only for an attack on critical fuel supply lines in the united states. revil is instead blame for attacking our critical food supply lines instead. but and the point of that is, maybe we don't really need to learn the fine distinctions between all of these stupidly named russian criminal gangs. because maybe they are all interlinked russian criminal gangs, and the main thing that we need to know about them rather than any supposed to find distinction between different entities among them, maybe the thing that we really need to know about them is that they are russian organized crime gangs, that are mounting very consequential transnational attacks, particularly targeting the united states. and they are apparently being allowed to operate by the government of russia because what is there not to like? right? what is there not for the kremlin to like? and american critical infrastructure being picked off at will while the u.s. government looks helpless against it. and millions of dollars flow

into russia as, you know, ransom. as payment for the privilege of them shutting us down whenever they feel like it's. i mean it does not delay give you the russian government here? if you are the russian government, you don't necessarily want to get caught shutting down major u.s. fuel pipelines and food supply lines. but if you can arrange essentially for criminal gangs to do that, and protect them while they do it. all the benefits close to you, and none of the consequences. provided, none of the consequences actually flow to you. so, how long is this going to keep going on? the white house today reiterated that this is something that they are racing directly with the russian government. the white house keeps repeating this phrase that they are communicating into russia that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals. russian does. and these attacks from russia, i mean, in the space of a month, have taken off line a shockingly large portion of

u.s. feel supplies in the u.s. food supply. what is next? i mean, i have questions about this. first of all, i'm surprised that this is not getting more media attention than it is. but to the extent that we are covering it, are we covering it properly? it is our journalism about this stuff is good enough? so, that we non tech folks, actually understand what is going on here, what the stakes, our how to keep it in perspective, and how we understand the range of potential responses? do we need to get better at explaining this? or are we correctly grasping the essentials? sort of a first order questions particularly for somebody like me who is trying to make sure that i really grasp the importance here. secondly, given that so many of these attacks are originating in russia, should we really expect that these attacks could be shut down by the russian government if the russian government were so inclined? i am under no illusions that the russian government is so inclined. but if their head could be turned on this, if consequences or incentives could be changed

for them, for the russian government, so, that they suddenly desire to stop these things, do we expect that they could? also, is there any evidence that the united states government has the capacity, the offensive capacity to brush these groups back? to shut them down? to dismantle them? to rob them of their ill gotten gains? i mean, what does the fbi mean when they say that they are continuing to focus their efforts on imposing -- risks and consequences. imposing risk and consequences, what does that mean in fbi speak when we are talking about this kind of attack on the united states? and, you know, bottom line, is this as scary as it seems? is this something that actually has been going along like this all the time and we're just paying a little bit of attention to it now because these up to be a couple of high-profile attacks? or are these in fact really high profile attacks, is it true that for whatever reason right now, because russian

criminal gangs operating from the safe harbor of the russian government, letting them operate their, are these russian attackers hitting targets in our country that our way closer to the heart of who we are and how we live? if so, why is that? and, if these attacks are getting more serious and more consequential, does that change what we as a country should or could do in response? david kennedy worked as a hacker for the united states marine corps, and also for the nsa, for the national security administration. he specialized in signals intelligence, and cyber warfare operations, he is now out of government. he is the founder of an information security consulting company called trusted sec. it's consults for fortune 100 companies, and governments. it also trains u.s. military cyber protection teams, most crucially, tonight, the thing to know about him is that his companies worked on multiple previous ransomware attacks carried out by this group, are

evil, or reveal, that the fbi is now blaming for this major attack on the major u.s. supplier of beef, jbs. david kennedy now joins us, live mr. kennedy, thank you so much for your time. i really appreciate you being here. >> absolutely, thank so much for having me on today. >> first, let me ask you the embarrassing question about revil versus, revil, and i think the other russian origin word that the fbi is using to describe this group. am i making a hash of? it or am i close? >> you did really good on its. it is a pretty accurate term. most people say revil, that's where we typically hear in the security industry. but any of one of them is fine. >> let me also just ask you sort of the first question that i teed up here tonight. i obviously am not a super tech minded person, i am a standard american all person that knows editor and things on and off, but i understand this is a pretty significant -- as somebody doesn't understand discovery well --

would else should we understand? can you all give you a chance to correct any wrong portrayal that i've made in terms of what these attacks really are. >> you had a couple of really important points and that these groups operate without impunity and said the russian government. the russian government knows exactly which targets are going after, but they absolutely have no recourse for going after u.s. based targets so long as they don't target russian influence is a russian government you can essentially work you know, it's causing much damage as possible. revil most specifically. you know, it nets over 100 million dollars a year for many more groups. dark side, very similar to that type of figure as well. you look at -- multiple hundreds of millions of dollars per year. these groups continue to grow, expand, their sophistication grows. here's the big piece to note, you mentioned you know, why are we just talking about this now, has this been around for a long time? it really has. but the problem is, we continuously are paying these

ransoms because they're getting so good at what they're doing, going through a backups, also stealing our data, that they intrench themselves into these companies that cannot recover. it is a terrifying situation for these organizations because you're looking at businesses who have been around for 200 years, and now they're completely shut down, they cannot operate, they cannot pay checks, they cannot you know, export goods, they can't manufacture products. they are completely shut down. the only recourse they have is to pay these ransom workers, who you know, i've talked to an executive and he's like, i literally had to go underneath the shower and just sit there and -- because i felt so dirty for paying this group. you know, for the ransoms. but it's the only way that our business can actually operate. and, they are making hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in what they're doing is that they're investing into more research, more developments, they're getting more fusses sophisticated which means it's harder to track them down with a larger organization, we saw that with jbs, we saw that with a, sir we saw that with universal health systems. we are continuously seeing that with larger scale now because of the sophistication of these

groups. >> is this a problem that is more sophisticated and larger than law enforcement and government can handle? and i ask that sort of from two perspectives, number one, you talked about the impunity with which these groups operate in russia. if russia decided to change their mind about these groups for whatever reason, i understand that they have every incentive to let this go ahead and they are not likely to have their hand turned on this. but if they did, would they have the power to control these groups or shut them down or divert them in some way? alternatively, does the united states or any other government entity have the ability to offensively combat them to either dismantle them or to blunt their influence? >> yeah, that's a great points, and the answer to that question is, if the russian government did not want these random workers to operate, they would not be operating. 100%. so, it would require the russian government to take a different stance on these random workers that are operating out of russia. and let's -- ransomware groups, they are all out of russia. they're making hundreds of

millions of dollars in flux into the russian government. and it's good for business for russia it's, bad for business in united states. it's good for russia ultimately. there are cases where, you know, we worked closely with a number of different countries, most recently there was a very large organized crime ransomware group called mo-tech they weren't located in, russia relocated different countries. and we'll enforcement of this country is in conjunction with u.s. law enforcement had rate that actually busted up this specific group. and there are no longer operating anymore. the problem is that soon as this group went, dark for assert ransomware groups went into the spot. dark side went dark, and another group called five hands took the spot, and is now handling the ransomware service that darkside head lost. so, it's a whack-a-mole problem that we have at these different ransomware groups. when it comes to the incentives, because they are getting paid, so, companies are paying the money for them. that's one problem. the other is that these groups can work with impunity without having to worry about getting busted if they're in. russia it will take some pretty

major distinctions and sanctions and going after the country, and making russia really focus primarily on targeting these organizations are making some sort of change. we just have not seen that historically former shuttle. >> last question for you, david. president biden and vladimir putin are due to have a summit in two weeks. and we are seeing a lot of provocative behavior by russia leading up to that summit. we are even seeing the russian government bragging about the fact that they are planning on being even more provocative leading up to that summit. do you think that it is possible that these attacks are hitting closer and closer to the heart of american critical infrastructure, heating fuel supply lines, food supply lines, in part because that is in the russian government's interest? in the terms that they are a to try to test and provoke president biden ahead of that meeting? >> yeah, that's a great point to bring up. is that we've never really seen ransomware groups target

critical infrastructure like we have in the past months. let's be clear, russia is also been involved, the russian government, fsb, it's been very involved in sort of major prolific attacks against solar winds which ultimately impacted microsoft, in, vma, or cisco, all the major companies that are technological backbones of our country. also, going after federal government agencies, there are energy grids. russia's government has been very overt on the several fronts. but we've never seen these ransomware groups bite off so big of a attack against critical infrastructure before. they've been formerly focused on, you know, going after organizations, companies, manufacturing companies, or they can make, you know, three to $5 million. never the critical infrastructure that we've seen before. so, they've been very brazen with what they've been doing. and it's very peculiar that it is around these same types of timeframes with a new administration coming aboard. it is really there to test the waters. it's absolutely a possibility. these groups, again, they don't focus on these high value targets without some very clear communication coming from the kremlin. so, i'd be very surprised if they weren't aware that these

targets are going on. and if it wasn't directed by the government itself. >> all, right targets big enough unimportant enough that demands a response from the u.s. government, and that is what they are getting. david kennedy, former nsa hacker, founder of trusted, zak, mr. kennedy thanks so much helping us understand that, we appreciate your clarity and expertise. >> thank, you i'm hoping for the ohio lottery winner, so i got my vaccine, i'm hoping to get that next. month >> i'll see what i can, do i'll put in a word. >> thanks! >> we have much more ahead tonight, stay with, us. itching for a treat. itching for an outing... or itching for some cuddle time. but you may not know when he's itching for help... licking for help... or rubbing for help. if your dog does these frequently. they may be signs of an allergic skin condition that needs treatment. don't wait. talk to your veterinarian and learn more at itchingforhelp.com.

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which shows will you be getting into tonight? how 'bout all of them. netflix. 'cause xfinity gets you really into your shows. when one burns for someone who does not feel the same. daphne, let's switch. from live tv to sports on the go. felix at the finish! you can even watch your dvr from anywhere. okay, that's just showing off. you get all of this on x1. so go on, get really into your shows. you need a breath mint. >>, new hampshire, is a small xfinity. it's a way better way to watch.

town on the southern part of new hampshire, about an hour inside of boston. 14,000 people live in windham new hampshire. last election day, they had races for four states in the state legislature. when the ballots were counted up from windham, the top four candidates, the winners of all those four seats were all republicans. democrats came in fifth.

but the returns show that it was really close. she had only lost out on one of those four slots by a grand total of 24 votes. so that democrat who came so close, she asked for a recount. they did a recount and what it turned up was kind of weird. rather than missing a slot in the slate legislature, rather than missing fourth place by just 24 votes. the recount actually showed but she lost by we more than that. more than 400 votes. the voting machines appeared to have undercounted the votes that were given to the republicans and over counted the votes for that democrat. and again, in those races, it didn't change the over all results, but it did change the margin. which was interesting and worth getting to the bottom of. windham officials said they thought the discrepancy had something to do with the voting machine simply because the voting machines were ole. they were from the nineties, and hadn't been updated for a decade. the state agreed to for an audit. the audit will happen in windham, new hampshire and. they wanted to make sure

nothing more serious was wrong with the machines or with the process there. and just reiterate, this was an incredibly local issue. this was an audit of all the election results in new hampshire. it wasn't even an audit of all the state legislature races in new hampshire. it was a handful of machines in one small town, in just a state legislature races there. but despite the narrowness of the apparent problem there, that didn't stop former president trump and his supporters from going on to this tiny audit in the specific problem in new hampshire, because they thought this would be their opportunity to expose the widespread fraud in the 2020 election. that would show donald trump was robbed of being elected. the risks would cast doubt nationwide about the integrity of the whole presidential election. the windham, new hampshire, state legislature results. the result the margin, not the result. last month, when the new hampshire state legislature held a meeting just to decide who would perform the audit,

what was described as an angry mob of trump supporters descended on that meeting. they demanded that new hampshire reject a candidate for the job with extensive experience. instead they demanded that new hampshire higher drove on a pulitzer. [laughs] the guy who says he invented a device that kansas out whether ballots are real or fake but can't tell you what his devices are how it works. because it's secret. he also, a roll call from the other times we've talked about him on the show, is the inventor of the handle cat shaped bar code scanner. that was named one of the worst take product inventions ever meet. that's who they wanted to do the audit. and it's not just supporters of donald trump who is turn to this audit in windham, into a clown car celeb for at the big lie. it's donald trump himself, to. last month, a former president posted this on his now defunct blog. he posted quote, new hampshire's election audit has

revealed, as revealed, that large-scale voting machines appear to count nonexisting votes. state local communities are seeking confirmation. it's probably true, but will soon know. [laughs] why are minority leader mitch mcconnell are republicans doing anything about went on in the 2020 elections? how can the democrats be allowed to get away with? this it will go down as the crime of the century. other states where arizona, georgia where a judge granted a ballot -- michigan, pennsylvania and more to follow. it's probably true. trump basically saying this audit in new hampshire, this is going to be the thing that blows the whole thing open? it's all going to be exposed. after new hampshire he says comes arizona, georgia, michigan, pennsylvania, iowa, the white house. it's probably true, will soon know. in the end, we did soon know. that statement from former president trump about how new

hampshire was going to start the undoing of the whole election, that was just over a week ago. that was may 24th. three days later, this was the headline at the new hampshire union leader. quote, windham, i'm sure audit, finds no fraud or evidence voting machines were tampered with. go figure. turns out former president trump was incorrect. but he said large-scale voting machines, whatever those are, we're counting nonexisting votes in new hampshire. >> there had been a very specific problem with the way ballots were handled in that new hampshire town. involving them being folded by the wrong machine that allowed the fold to read something as vote as warm votes. when they unfolded them and looked at them, it turns out that was the only problem and the re-ran them and got the real results. that was it. and they sorted that out, they realize that had been the problem. now we know happened in new hampshire. it didn't reveal that nationwide there was a huge

voter fraud scandal. the even with that flop in new hampshire, the fight to pretend that donald trump is rightful winner of the 2020 election remains active. the so-called audit of the election results in arizona continues. it's still anybody's guess as to when that will wrap up. the state lawmakers are reportedly kicking around the idea of doing yet another election audit in arizona, after this one. auditing again, the same 2 million ballots being sham audited right now. because apparently, what they're doing now isn't enough. today, the arizona so-called audit however, had visitors. you can see in this photo, there's all these people in like college shirt, those little guys in suits there, those are republican state lawmakers from the great state of pennsylvania. they today, got a private tour of the ongoing arizona audit. the ceo of cyber ninjas, the firm that's running this bs on it, he squire them around the site himself today. when asked by reporter whether he wants to do an arizona style

audit in pennsylvania one of the republican lawmakers touring the site today responded quote, i do. i do. this kind of effort is spreading anywhere republicans have power. and wisconsin, republicans there have come up with a brand-new way to cast doubt on the legitimacy of joe biden's victory in their state, as well. this one will will be double your socks off. we have that story for you next. stay with us. stay with us out of here? ah ha. we've got you. during expedia travel week, save 20% or more on thousands of hotels. expedia. it matters who you travel with.

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democratic governor, but republicans are controlling the state legislature. which means a lot of headlines like this from two weeks ago. wisconsin republicans reject funding to fight homelessness. the governor proposes spending money to fight homelessness amid a nationwide economic downturn. the legislature says no, we're not doing. that this from last week, republican wisconsin republicans quickly kill medicaid expansion. wisconsin voted to give lots

more people health concerns. in the state, wisconsin republicans block. that just today, republican lawmakers reject proposals from the democratic governor to shore up the states unemployment plan, which has been stretched thin by the pandemic. that's what headlines look like in wisconsin politics right now. but wisconsin republicans have found at least one thing they are willing to move forward on. which is trying to cast doubt on the 2020 election results from wisconsin. just like republicans in arizona, wisconsin's republican controlled legislature has decided they're going to spend an undisclosed amount of taxpayer funds to entertain president trump's fantasies about some kind of election fraud that will explain why joe biden is in the white house, even though it really should be donald trump. wisconsin though, they've we they've decided to go about doing this is where other than anything we've seen in states so far. according to the milwaukee journal sentinel, the republican speaker of the assembly has hired three former

police officers to carry out an investigation to quote, investigate aspects of the november election. speaker vos said he was giving the investigators a broad mandate to spend about three months reviewing all tips and following up on the most credible ones. the officers have reportedly also been given subpoena power. over the weekend, the journal central dug into the background of one of three officers hired by the republican speaker. his experience in investigating voter fraud include him writing a bogus report on alleged voter fraud in the 2004 election, that a federal garage later declared not trustworthy. according to the journal central, the officer used his own funds to pay for copying and binding. some coffees of his bogus reports which, he then delivered himself to the states democratic and republican parties. his boss then banned him from visiting the polls on election day in 2008, after which he quit the police force to go work for a texas-based tea

party group that said conservative poll launchers the polls on election day. and that has been accused of intimidating minority and democratic voters. . -- i should know, joe biden won by not a considerable margin. joining us now is ben wikler. he is the chairman of the wisconsin democratic party, mr. wikler, it is nice to see you, thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> it is great to see you rachel. >> looking in front of the outside, this feels both in keeping with what we have seen in other states including arizona, and it also feels weirder and smaller. can you tell me whether no that's an appropriate impression or is there something else that i should understand about it? >> so, i think you are right that it is we are. it is very much in keeping with wisconsin in 2021. but it is not smaller, because the difference between

wisconsin in the other states where republicans are trying to trump up these investigations, sham investigations. is that wisconsin has been the tipping point in the last two presidential elections. and, the other difference is that we do, as you said, have a democratic governor who can actually veto republican voter suppression bills. so, this is about one thing. it is less about trying to reel it against 2020, it is more about trying to help trump steal 2024. and if republicans managed to build up this suspicion. and then, if they win the governorship, they will pass voter suppression bills to tell the vote in 2024, which is why we are obsessed in reelecting our governor in 2022 so they cannot carry out this dastardly plot. >> as they pursue this in the state assembly, and it is remarkable, we don't know as far as we know -- we can only discern the name and that therefore the background of one of the officers who they have hired to do this investigation, and so, we don't know who else is going to be involved. but if they follow the other

guys lead, we're sort of having a sense of what the character of this investigation is going to be like. that's governor tony have any say or any control on what happens with this investigation? >> well, last time republicans used -- they signed 1 million dollar contract to start getting ready to re-gerrymander the states. and they lost in court. you know, progressive sue them and show that they were not actually allowed to do with a. good republicans are thwarted at every turn in an attempt to dismantle our democracy because we have a democratic governor. that is why we were able to win here in 2020, because they were not able to shred voting rights going into this incredibly hard-fought reelection last time. -- some bogus reports, like this next police officer did. years and years ago, it will not turn into a bill that is signed into law, if the governor has his veto pen. which he does, governor evers is the last landed offense in this fight.

they are not convincing anyone outside of their own hard-core partisans, the only important thing is that to make sure that those hard-core partisans did not get trifecta control of the state, and the ability to legislate the way that they have got in georgia, arizona, texas, florida. >> the one thing that we have seen, also, then in arizona is that this has become a huge fund-raising juggernaut for arizona republicans. they are raising is so much more money this year than they were this time last year. there was a report about it today just in the arizona republic, that by creating a spectacle, whether or not they are only appealing to the hard-core partisans here, they have been able to attract, basically trump supporters money, from all over the country, that is all going into the coffers of republican activists and the republican party in the state as they make this into a cause celeb that may not have any direct manifestation in terms of election results, but it will cast aspersions on the -- crisis patients about the election results, and it will build up their party and their ability to compete in the next

elections. >> it is a grift for the gop. but they are turning it into political power. i mean, the important thing is that if you believe in democracy, if you believe that everyone should have a say in determining self government in our country, you have to support the folks that are fighting for democracy. and in wisconsin, that means going to -- and going to tony evens.com, chipping in -- we are hiring organizers literally right now, you can find the application page on our website, to make sure that across the state, you are talking to voters about the fact that they do have voting rights. that they can request absentee ballots. republicans cannot shut that down, there's so much smoke that they're liking to kick up. we have to get both feet on the gas pedal, to make sure that our democracy actually works in 2022 so that it is not gone in 2024. >> ben wikler, -- thank you for joining us, then. really, a pleasure to have you here. >> thank you so much. >> all right, we have more tonight ahead, stay with us. ght ahead, stay with us. ore,

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last july, covid crisis, government mismanagement effort, the trump administration announced that they were going to give a huge 765 million dollar governments loan to a private company. all to ramp up american more pharmaceutical manufacturing. the company that was going to get this huge loan was, kodak. kodak? the camera company? really? why? was it just alliteration? they're like cameras. kodak. covid. close enough. i mean, will there be any weirder than any other decisions they made? so, super random announcement. there is kodak, last announcement in three quarters of a billion dollar government alone, last summer. and announcing as if it is already signed, sealed, delivered. well, it turns out that that alone to kodak never really actually materialized. it never happened. kodak never did a big pivot to

drugs. never actually produced anything. what was going on there? what was that all about? well, we now know that the month before that announcement. kodak ceo who knew that potential several federal deal wasn't works, he bought a ton of kodak stock for himself, nearly 50,000 shares. and when that huge federal infusion of cash was announced, kodak stop one from a little over $2 a share to a high of $60 a share. so, that proved to be a prescient stock purchase. in case it looked like there was some sort of funny business going on, that seems to be supported by actions later taken by new york attorney general letitia james, who now appears to be aggressively pursuing a case against a company for having uv -- disorganized cronyism driven, catastrophic covid response, as an opportunity for what looks like actually really blatant -- insider trading. james office is now seeking court ordered officials to

force the kodak officials to testify publicly about the matter. the office says that kotex statement to investors claiming the stock trades were in compliance with company insider trading policy, says james is offices now to the court that those statements were false and misleading. kodak is denying this. they are saying that are attorney generals letitia james is wrong on the facts. kodak and their attorney general saying that james is officer not just interpreting the facts differently here, both groups are outright saying the other is lying. but this is the sort of thing that will have a resolution because it looks like it is going to be settled in a court of law. public testimony on winding this one should be quite fun. watch this space. plus 8 b-vitamins for brain support. one a day and done.

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but we couldn't do it without you. thank you, san francisco. gracias, san francisco. -thank you. -[ speaks native language ] >> that is going to do it for let's keep making a differene together. us for tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. now it's time for the last word with the great lawrence cardinal. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. we >> have ben rhodes joining us tonight. i really love your interview with him last night about his book. we have a real business to conduct with him on what's going on in israel, so who be joining us on that. >> excellent. >> last night, with ben and the book and the full context that you brought to that was really wonderful. >> well, thank you. ben rhodes has had a singular seat to recent history. and the somberness with which he is approaching this moment and how his book is about how we are buffeted by all of the same