hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. every single maligned movement in american politics right now is rooted in the ex-president's lie about the existence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. the more than 400 voter suppression laws masquerading as integrity measures, the obstruction by republicans of a 9/11-style commission to investigate the deadly january 6th insurrection, the glorification of insurrectionist ashley babbitt, demonization of the first responders who protected the u.s. capitol on january 6th, and the dangerous delusions of the reinstatement of the ex-president which is among the conspiracy theories animating a nearly unprecedented

domestic violence extremism threat here in the u.s. right now. perhaps nothing encapsulates the emergence of threats as much as the sham audit of ballots in maricopa county. when the gop is akin to a locomotive barreling down the tracks with no brakes, the audit has become such a farce even some arizona republicans now want to stop that runaway train. from the wash be wash post, elected leaders in arizona's largest county responded defiantly to a new subpoena issued by the state senate that sought routers to bolster a review of the 2020 election results. senate president, a republican, said the items needed to conclude the controversial audit of the election in maricopa county which has been conducted on behalf of the senate since april. county officials sent the senate a scathing letter saying enough is enough, that they refuse to

indulge in any conspiracy theories. that letter reads, quote, it is now august of 2021. the election of november 2020 is over. if you haven't figured out that the election in maricopa county was free, fair, and accurate yet, i'm not sure you ever will. the board has real work to do and little time to entertain this adventure in never-never land. please finish whatever it is that you were doing and release whatever it is you are going to release. there was no fraud. there wasn't an injection of ballots from asia, nor was there a satellite that beamed votes into our election equipment. it is time for all elected officials to tell the truth and stop engaging in conspiracies. please release your report and be prepared to defend any accusations of misdeeds in court. it is time to move on. patience in arizona is running low. an op-ed in the state's largest newspaper puts it this way, fann

and her auditors have had four months to find and cast doubt is exactly what the ex-president tried to do last year. when he and his allies engaged in a pressure campaign to get state election officials and the justice department to allege fraud. abc news is reporting on a plot within the doj to overturn election results. they write this, quote, top members of the department of justice last year rebuffed another doj official who asked them to urge officials in georgia to investigate and perhaps overturn president joe biden's victory in the state, long a bitter point of contention for former president trump and his team before the results were certified by congress. emails reviewed by abc news show. the clearly articulated intent by donald trump and his cronies to overthrow the election results as arizona continues to

undermine its vote count is where we start this hour. tim miller is here, a writer at large for the bulwark and lucky for us an msnbc contributor. also joining us ryan randazo for "the arizona republic." and arizona secretary of state kitty hodge is here, also now running for governor of arizona. madam secretary, first take us inside where things stand right now. >> well, i mean, what we've been seeing all along is these folks are making this up as they go along grasping at straws. i am really glad for maricopa county's response this request is ridiculous. what the senate is asking for is ridiculous and they need to wrap this up. it is not an exercise designed to validate the election. it's designed to undermine voter confidence. we need to prepare for the 2022 election. >> madam secretary, there's some great reporting in "the new

yorker" this week about who is paying for the audit. we'll talk about it on the other side. although the arizona audit may appear to be the product of local extremists, it has been fed by sophisticated, well-funded national organizations whose boards of directors include some of country's wealthiest and highest profile conservatives. dark money organizations sustained by undisclosed donors have relentlessly promoted the myth that american elections are rife with fraud. they have drafted, supported and in some cases taken credit for state laws that make it harder to vote. do you think the people of arizona are aware of the dark out-of-state money funding what is going on in their state? >> absolutely. people have expressed concern from the beginning of how this was getting paid for, who is paying for it, and concerned about their taxpayer dollars going towards it. and we knew that wasn't the case

and the sources of funds were probably very partisan and folks who were promoting these conspiracy theories about the election and, quite frankly, arizonians are tired of these partisan games. that's part of why i'm running for governor is to get to work on real problems that we're dealing with in arizona and not continue to rehash the 2020 election that was over nine months ago. >> and it is amazing it is nine months in the rear-view mirror and still going strong. i think one of the things that thrust it is onto the front pages of all of our newspapers are the revelations and the congressional investigations into what was going on at the justice department. we learned that donald trump was trying to use his justice department to overturn the results in places like arizona. i want to play some of the messages, some of the pressure campaign that was under way from the president's closest legal advisers. this is a message that rudy

giuliani left for some of the maricopa county officials. listen. >> hey, clint, it's rudy giuliani. i was very happy to see that there's going to be a forensic audit of the machines. and i really wanted to talk to you about it a bit. the president wanted me to give you a call. all right? thank you. bill, it's rudy giuliani, president trump's lawyer. if you get a chance, would you please give me a call? i have a few things i would like to talk over with you. maybe we can get this thing fixed up. you know, i really think it's a shame that republicans sort of are both in this kind of situation. i think there may be a nice way to resolve this for everybody. hi, steve, it's rudy. i see we're going to get a chance to take a good look at those machines. and we've got people there ready to come out right now. let's get it done quickly. madam secretary, i have to give credit to ryan and the newspaper, their excellent reporting, that made those voice

mails public to us. were you aware those calls were coming in from rudy giuliani to officials? >> no, we were not aware. certainly with most arizonians finding out about this, it was highly alarming and this is irregular, not something that is normal in the course of conducting an election. >> ryan, i want to come to you on some of the investigative reporting which has turned inside out what this effort is. reporting dark money funded effort clearly rooted in disinformation, the voice mails prove this was the lawyer most closely aligned with donald trump's campaign to overturn the government, and the revelation this is week most recently from abc news that this was a top-to-bottom executive branch effort to overturn the will of the vote including in your state. i wonder if there is fatigue, if this lands with fresh alarm. what is the reaction in arizona?

>> fatigue is a good word t. i think could you sense that in the county supervisor's letter this week. those are republicans that were taking the calls or ignoring the calls from rudy giuliani. they, for months now, had this pressure on them and now their own party is calling them traitors, as you showed earlier, suggesting they be put in solitary confinement. these are republicans who supported trump but are unwilling to undo a fair election that they oversaw in the county. tempers are flaring like you saw in that letter. >> ryan, can you pull the string forward for us. what happens next? when does this end? what authority does the state have to end it? >> that's a great question. we're all waiting for it to end. we're eager for the final report from the their findings, what they told us most recently at a hearing was that they don't have

enough information to and if you lost them, we'll provide them to you again. some we're not going to give to you, but it doesn't seem like an end is near. they're going to continue to fight in court over what they can get from the county and the senate is also fighting on two different fronts to keep all of the records from this audit secret so the arizona republic has sued the senate and cyber ninjas trying to get their communication and another group has sued and they're fighting both of those lawsuits for public record. the audit itself could drag on for weeks more maybe and the fight over these records looks like it will drag on for a while as well. >> tim miller, with respect to ryan's body of reporting, he is the preeminent expert on what's happening in the state and the

secretary's official duties, it is absolute horse you know what that we're all waiting on pins and needles for cyber ninjas to finish anything other than lunch. they are not auditors. they do not have any record of success as auditors. their owners are associated with the farcical sort of fantasy football version of a coup of turning over the election result. how did we get here? >> donald trump is how we got here, nicole. i do want to say, ryan's reporting has been critical. i'm a subscriber as i've been trying to follow this for not being in the state. local journalism matters. it's important this is exposed. the big reason why you have that small slice but a noticeable slice in arizona of republicans who are saying enough to this is because of the revelations that we've seen from journalists about just how gonzo and how

nonsense this cyber ninja fraud is. and the thing that worries me the most about this, nicolle, and we talked about it before but it's worth repeating, this is a powder keg right now. when you look at what happened on january 6th, the reason why that was out of control is because there was this decision point and there was a moment and there was a gathering place and people were upset and people were angry. i looked at this arizona audit release as the next potential inflection point. hopefully, god willing, that passes without any incident. but that is very much a moment where let's say the ninjas come out and obviously they're going to fabricate whatever they think they need to say to shed some doubt on the results and that people whether it's journalists, my colleagues on this panel or people who are vote counters or government officials in the state i think are going to have real threats and there's going to be real concerns, and you can see now if you're watching,

which i have to suffer through, the steve bannon podcast and other far-right things. you can see a gathering moment again where once again there are rallies starting, there are efforts starting to push back on this with the arizona audit being the central point and the central moment. >> madam secretary, is that how you see it in the state? does it seem like a powder keg, and are you worried about violence? >> absolutely that is spot on and i am certainly worried about escalating threats and potential violence. my office has been on the receiving end of that for the last nine months and that has continued. and so certainly when this report comes out we're bracing for impact there. >> tim, i want to come back to you and sort of broaden your analysis to all of the

anti-democratic movements that spring from the big lie. you talk about the bannon podcast. it is not narrowly focused on arizona. it is focused on a broader anti-democratic set of moves. but at the root of all of them is a lie about election fraud. bill barr looked for fraud. he wasn't skeptical. he looked and he couldn't find any. chris krebs' job was to protect the election, lifelong republican. he did that and described it as the most secure election in our country's history. we're learning through email dumps through doj and congressional investigations just how close we came to doj being pressured beyond the point they could resist by the ex-president to announce the result of the 2020 election was, quote, corrupt. that's what donald trump wanted them to do. i want to read something that's in "the bulwark" today from charlie sykes. this is, of course, weapons

grade nut baggery, but maybe we need to take it seriously because something genuinely odd is happening on the right. ideas that would have been unthinkable are being normalized. this includes the explicit embrace of the idea of an american dictator. how do we break that? >> boy, i was with you until the last question. if i had a solution to it and shining light on it -- here is the important part of the election reforms. making sure the winners of elections win. because, you know, as disturbing and scary as it is about this increasing fascist authoritarian footsie people on the right are playing, of tucker carlson going to see victor in hungary. you can sense this increasing

momentum on the right towards this. that said there is still a minority within the republican party who thinks this is nutbaggery like charlie sykes. they may not be ready to become democrats yet or go all the way to where some of us have gone as far as leaving the party, but they are not interested in what is being sold on the steve bannon podcast. i do think there's a light that needs to be shown on this. there's a sense sometimes that among -- you don't want to elevate the craziest elements of the right. i think, unfortunately, because of the platform on fox, just last night a call to arms that was -- that could be seen as a call for violence over these kind of imagined threats from the left. tucker carlson, as i mentioned, in hungary, you see what happened to bannon's podcast is in the top five. they have massive platforms.

we need to recognize and push a hole in this and pull over another 2%, 3%, 5% of people who can look at secretary of state hobbs and say this is a reasonable person. i disagree on some issues but she's not going along with this nutbaggerry in arizona and that's the best we can do to try to tamp down the increasing authoritarianism on the right. >> yes, and i think it's important to be specific. madam secretary, arizona has also been a front in these sort of rolling back of access to the right to vote and who is the arbiter of the actual vote, and i wonder if you feel it's time for democrats in washington to view it as existential as the republicans clearly do. >> well, i absolutely believe we're at a tipping point and we need federal action to protect voter access across the country. certainly here in arizona. but we've seen -- been going in

the opposite direction. i've been really clear on my position about that. i don't think that voting rights is one issue. i think it's the issue that, you know, leads to all others. and we're at a place where we need to take some real action to put federal protection in place for americans' access to the ballot. >> can a state like arizona be voter suppression and voter vote rigged out of contention for democrats? >> i mean, no. i think that we're, in my office, we worked really hard to address barriers that existed to voting. we had no legislative support to do that. we did that all within the legal frim work that was in place and that was in the face of these multiple challenges we were facing in the 2020 election. we're going to continue to do that despite the attempts the legislature makes to make it

harder for people to vote, to choose their own voters rather than have the voters choose them. i think it's paramount that we continue to take down the barriers every way that we can and we'll continue to do that. >> ryryan, what is the degree o engagement in arizona around engagement? is it low-grade anxiety to the masses? can you take me inside arizona voter sentiment? is there acute awareness the maricopa audit is ground zero of trump's delusional path to reinstatement? >> well, there definitely is that awareness and it's not a good feeling for most arizonians on either side of the political spectrum to know their state is being highlighted on the national news for this audit. there are very vocal supporters of the audit who believe there's some sort of fraud that they can't point to or have evidence

of in the election, but there is a large swath of this state that i talk with frequently. my family is in this state. my colleagues in the state, sources that i've known for years, again, from both sides of the political spectrum who really are shaking their head that this has gone on for so long and been kind of an embarrassment for the state that we've turned over the ballots to this group of cyber ninjas who apparently don't know how to count very well and can't get the job done. so there's fatigue on that. there's dismay that arizona is ground zero for trump's continued false claims about the election. and i personally am quite interested how this plays out in 2022 with the politicians who are doubling down on this, will they carry this message of election integrity all the way to success in the elections in

'22? that's the question i look at as a reporter. where will this take them, or is this going to fizzle out? i'm noticing that more and more republicans are dropping off. we saw one additional arizona senator share her concerns the cyber ninjas were not doing a good job. so it's slow but you are seeing people who previously supported this audit lose faith in what is going on here. >> i just want to button up your really important insight there, ryan. the republicans -- i think powder keg is the right word to describe the security situation, but it's as politically fraught. republicans are betting against a democracy and at least at this point that is still how you win elections. they still need people to believe in democracy to get re-elected to their own seat. it is a game of chicken and a very, very unhealthy one. ryan randazzo, tim miller and secretary katie hobbs, thank you

so much for joining us. when we come back, the judge in a january 6 sentencing hearing today is slamming one defendant before her for trusting the former president and his lies about election fraud. a big day in court proceedings, more than 2 dozen plea hearings. the latest on that front up next. plus, governor andrew cuomo remains defiant at this hour. he is struggling to hold on to power. yesterday it was calls to resign. today district attorneys from across the state of new york are seeking evidence in the multiple sexual harassment allegations against him. the professional, political and legal troubles continuing to mount for andrew cuomo this hour. and a brand-new inside look at the events leading up to donald trump's first impeachment with the man who says he started it all. alexander vindman speaking out in the latest investigation involving donald trump and his actions january 6th. all those stories and more when

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january 6th unleashed many horrors, but it also revealed many heroes. a day that many of us remember for its violence, anger and destruction was not without its share of bravery, sacrifice and selflessness. >> that was majority leader chuck schumer moments before the united states senate voted unanimously to award the congressional gold medal to the heroes who responded to the assault on the capitol. it is painful but essential to

point out again and again that in the weeks and months since that attack four officers present that day have taken their own lives. separately the effort to punish all those responsible for the violence on january 6th continues. one sentencing this week stands out, at least to us, thanks to a name that might ring a bell. judge amy berman jackson. today more of her trademark honesty in the sentencing of a defendant, quote, we are not here today because he supported the former president. millions of people voted for him and did not heed his call to descend on the nation's capitol. he was arrested because he was an enthusiastic participant in an effort to subvert and undo the process. the fact is the defendant came to the capitol because he placed his trust in someone who repaid that trust by lying to him. nbc washington investigative reporter, scott macfar land and our friend eugene daniels, an

msnbc contributor. scott, take me through what is a rebuke, obviously, that is connected to one defendant but you could say a rebuke for all. >> reporter: that's right, nicolle. weeks ago the judge ordered carl dresh jailed until trial saying he was too dangerous, that donald trump was his sole source of information. tonight he's going home. he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. the maximum sentencing guidelines are six months. he's already served six months in jail so he'll be free to go. judge jackson leaned into donald trump again today, though, with what she said at sentencing. she said to him, your vote doesn't count more than anyone else's. you can't cancel them out. patriotism is loyalty to the country not loyalty to a single

head of state. this is important. he has pleaded guilty to what we've seen others plead guilty to. unlawful picketing. they haven't damaged or hurt anyone and in each case they're averting prison by pleading guilty to it. i'll note this, though, nicolle, we'll see what happens when those who were accused of assault and damage come for sentencing later this year. >> where are some of those cases, particularly as we watch the two police departments who responded clearly you can surmice there's still some trauma for many of them. >> reporter: one of those cases is the man charged with assaulting d.c. officer michael fanone and stealing his police badge. we got an indication that he's moving to a possible plea deal. so that could be telling. but in all the cases so far, the judges might be handcuffed by the deals cut by prosecutors, but the judges are giving

prosecutors exactly what they ask for in the sentencing memorandum. that could be an indication of things to come. >> eugene, the courtroom has been one of, sort of, the few bright spots where the rubber meets the road. it takes longer, it's more opaque, but rudy giuliani had zero successes in court peddling the big lie. judge jackson speaking truth to those defendants. mo brooks is also running up against the legal system. talk about his efforts and his bizarre defense of his conduct on january 6th. >> yeah. based on reports it seems like mo brooks, the congressman, is defending and representing himself at this point. he was kind of dodging this lawsuit as much as he could trying to make sure he wane served. he obviously was in court. he was asking the department of

justice at one point, nicolle, to defend him, saying he was a congressman, that he was not acting outside of his duties, that he was not at a campaign-style event. they have declined to defend him. they said were you outside of your duties of government employee because of what happened at the ellipse saying that was essentially a campaign event. i think most people would probably agree with the finding there. and the evidence they're going to lean in, the things he said on that day one, quote, that today is the day american patriots start taking down names and kicking -- i don't want to curse on your air. and things like in our report it december that he was spearheading the push to overturn the election results, organizing through white house meetings. there's all this stuff that's against him and what he has leaned into, first of all, representing himself but talking about himself in the third person, a very trumpian way to do it, talked about how he was

faithful to his wife, how he had not done drugs. he also talked about not having any ethics issues despite the fact that, according to him, democrats had come at him with 38, i think was the number, of different ethics complaints. so he is leaning into the trumpian aspect of this, how he sees this. what we do know is mo brooks was a huge part of what happened on january 6th. he was out front and had been working to steal the election and overturn that election for months. >> eugene, i want to ask you what the sort of fallout has been from the revelation mr. donahue's notes that donald trump was seeking not just to have the justice department declare corrupt -- actually, it's worse than that, in the face of evidence to the contrary, two attorneys general told him that, bill barr and

jeffry rosen, and he described leave the rest to me and my rs, my r members. is there any consternation or scrambling on capitol hill to get their stories straight? >> i mean, we've seen congressman jim jordan who when asked by reporters if he talked to the president on january 6th hemming and hawing and stumbling if he remembers that phone call because i think what's happening, nicolle, is as we continue to hear more things, there's a lot of books that are coming out, different types of revelations about the trump years that we could have kind of expected. i think the letter we've seen, that president trump said that based on these notes, that's not surprising. that's something we probably could have expected. what you're seeing on capitol hill, they know at this point that they are pretty protected

politically, right? they know that he is still the head of the party, donald trump, and that unless you're onboard with him you're not welcoming the party. you can ask people like liz cheney and adam kinzinger. as this investigation this january 6 select committee, moves forward, i think there is concern about them being called upon as witnesses, having to say what they said if they talked to president trump and all of those kinds of things and not just on january 6th but the months leading up to january 6th. there is some, i guess, i wouldn't say people are shaking in their boots but are trying to make sure they know what they know going into the committee when the committee comes back in a couple of weeks. >> scott, i want to ask you about what seemed to be two soon to intersect endeavors. you've covered every stage and every filing and every charge in the criminal investigation into the insurrection, but you're also on capitol hill covering this congressional investigation

which seems to be starting more top down. i wonder where and when you think and how they intersect. >> when you watch what you watched last week, the capitol police officers and d.c. police officers testifying about the horror, that, again, raises awareness, in the public, the judicial system of truly what happened. this was not a tourist visit. i keep hearing the judges emphasize that when they're doing sentencing this was not a tourist visit. this was clearly not a fewerist visit. charges want to make sure there's no equivocation about that. >> scott macfarlane and eugene daniels, two of our most favorite guests, thank you for spending time with us today. up next for us, governor andrew cuomo has not been heard from or seen since his taped response was released to the state's report on him sexually harassing nearly a dozen women while in office. what comes next for him as the calls for resignation,

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i didn't know who i could trust. i didn't know who to turn to, and because he's the governor, i felt like i had nowhere to go. he said he was lonely. he said he was looking for a girlfriend. he said he wanted to be with someone. i think he was interested to see how interested i was.

he was propositioning me for sex. >> that's charlotte bennett. charlotte bennett, a former aide to new york governor andrew cuomo. her accusations of sexual harassment including inappropriate comments to her about her relationships and her body have been laid bear in the new york attorney general's report yesterday and there is continued fallout for the governor of new york who denies any wrongdoing and is showing no willingness to step down. a new poll from marist shows 59% of adults in the state of new york says cuomo should resign and if it doesn't the same 59% say he should be impeached by the new york state legislature. the state assembly promising it is working expeditiously to conclude its impeachment investigation into cuomo. on top of that the pressure of four of the largest district attorney offices in the state of new york, all of them separately requesting evidence from the ag

into possible criminal investigations. an investigation for lindsay boylan says she plans to sue him for retaliation. joining us a former staffer in the governor's office. it was a pleasure to get to talk to you last night in the 9:00 hour. we wanted to have you back today. i was struggling in the break with whether to even play governor cuomo's response, but since i have you with me, let's play it and you and i will talk about it on the other side. >> okay. >> i thought i could help her work through a difficult time. i did ask her questions i don't normally ask people. i did ask her how she was doing and how she was feeling, and i did ask questions to try to see if she had positive support of dating relationships. i have heard charlotte and her lawyer, and i understand what they are saying. but they read into comments that

i made and draw inferences that i never meant. >> senator, i am without words so i'm asking for yours. >> sure, and it's nice to be able to talk to you again, unfortunately, about this topic. i'm happy to share. listen, the governor's response to the attorney general's investigation yesterday was perverse. it was dated. it was insensitive and made me foal a great deal of sorrow not only for charlotte bennett and other victims of sexual assault and harassment but also for a lot of the survivors, for the thousands of survivors across new york and the country who were watching and how it felt when they said their truth and gaslighting is what the

experience is as a survivor, being misinterpreted and it's unfortunate, but what the governor has done here is made an attempt to really undermine the credibility of this credible set of not only witnesses and testimony but this credible set of women who have put their lives on the line so that there can be a semblance of accountability. i think ultimately what's happening here is that with the governor really trying to distort what the women experienced, it's a way to try to say that these women are too emotional, that their experience doesn't allow them to understand when in reality as a survivor myself what i know is after years of therapy and healing what you learn is actually to be able to identify harassment and abuse much more clearly and, frankly, much more quickly, than not. and so i think what we have here is actually a set of women, especially charlotte bennett, who are not only able to do that but they actually are even more

credible. and so it's just horrifying, unfortunately. >> i mean, there's so much and so much to say about trauma and about the courage that you've all found to talk about this in light of that. i want to, though, ask you what happens next? you had some great insights into what you think cuomo will do. what do you think the state will do? will he be impeached if he doesn't resign? and how long will that take? >> sure. so i think even though i would hope that governor cuomo would resign, i, unfortunately, don't believe he will be listening to the chorus of voices across political spectrum, across states now. we have the lead earp of the free world, our president, calling on the governor of new york to resign, and he still has not done so. and so i don't believe that he will. now what does that mean? it means the legislature in new york has the ability to begin the impeachment process. the impeachment process in new york begins with the assembly

who has to vote by a majority of their members to initiate the proceedings. that could happen as early as today because what the impeachment process requires is a resolution and so i heard earlier in the leadup to this commentary about members of the assembly saying we want to complete our own investigation first. no. that is not necessary. why is it not necessary? because the resolution of impeachment can be delivered to the senate. the senate, which i am a member of, then does a hearing and a trial. during that trial we can then do an investigation. but we don't need to do a preinvestigation to begin the impeachment process. why this is so important is once the impeachment process is begun, the governor has to step aside and the lieutenant governor has to step in. and that matters because as many people who have called for the governor to resign believe and feel this governor is no longer fit to serve the state of new york. >> well, and you mentioned last

night the state of new york has a lot of huge things before it, the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, ongoing questions about the governor's handling of nursing homes. i wonder if you could speak to the collision of this moment for the state and the crisis the governor faces. >> absolutely. so i think that the way that it's kind of occurred in new york is that since the early part of 2021 what has happened here is an unfolding of the misdeeds and the bad behavior of governor cuomo. and so what that's done is taken a lot of the time and attention away from the work of the people of new york. and so when we think about things like getting the money out the door for a lot of tenants and for the landlords who are really on the brink of becoming homeless, we have to make sure the money gets out the door. yet this governor has failed to do that. whether it's making sure undocumented immigrants can have the money delivered to them

through the excluded workers fund, again, barriers put up by this administration to almost when it seems it prevents the money from going out the door. in addition to not only a surge of delta, a surge of the delta plus variant taking place, which means we have to be extra vigilant, make sure the information we're getting to the people we all represent is responsible and that it's coming from trustworthy sources. i think that's probably, for me, where it makes the most sense. this is a governor who has lost the trust of the people. and so anything that comes out of his office really comes out of the office in a way that is tainted. we cannot afford that because the trust of the people is how we conduct our business. and when you lose that, you are not able to actually serve. >> and just to bolster your comments with some data, marist showing that 59% of all new yorkers would like the governor to resign. marist also showing that 59% would like to see him impeached

if he doesn't. thank you for coming back and talking to me today. i'm grateful. up next for us, if you want to go to a bar or a restaurant or a gym in new york city, guess what, you're going to have to show them that you have been vaccinated with at least one shot. we'll talk with one restaurant owner onboard with the move calling it a matter of life and death. that's next. why hide your skin if dupixent has your moderate-to-severe eczema or atopic dermatitis under control?

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new york city, the country's first major covid epicenter, is taking vaccine incentives to the next level with a potentially life-saving new rule for how we gather in indoor public spaces. starting on september 13th, at least one covid dose proven through the city's new app or paper card that shows you have it will be required for entry into all new york city's restaurants, gyms and performance venues, including broadway. here was mayor bill de blasio this morning on his decision, the first of its kind in the country. >> there was incentives, it was compassionate and kind. but now it's time to get a little blunter about the fact that everyone needs to get vaccinated for the good of their family, their community, their country. >> joining us now is co-owner of the world famous sylvia's restaurant in harlem as well as a member of the new york forward advisory board.

i see you're doing what i always do, getting your zoom up. we see you. can you hear us, and can you tell us what you think about that? >> i can. i can, and here's the thing. it's going to be difficult, but we're in difficult times and we just have to rise to that occasion and do what's going to be best for health and safety. >> sylvia's is so iconic and so important to new york and to the country and to sort of our political story that we tell as new yorkers and to the country. i wonders if you're aware of how significant it is that you're taking this stand and that you support this measure? >> we have, unfortunately, had to have made difficult decisions before, but standing with the mayor means that we are in compliance. and when you're in the restaurant industry, it's very important that folks understand

that hospitality, yeah, that's the overarching, but we're in the business of health and safety. and this is a matter of health and safety. normally by no means, you know, do we stand with our decisions what to do with our bodies being governed, but when it impacts others and health and safety, then i understand. i understand. and this is -- we're in difficult times. i've lost a lot of loved ones to covid. i had covid. and it's not something that we need to take lightly. unfortunately, we don't have another option currently. so we have to fight the war with what weapons we have. and the only weapon that we have against this variant is the vaccination. that's the only thing that's going to save us from death.

>> i wish that every single person could hear what you just said because it cuts through all of the bs in the political world on both sides -- not both sides, there isn't disinformation on the left. there's disinformation on the right or skepticism. there's fear. but you're right, it isn't the perfect solution, it is the only solution. can you just talk about the stakes of getting this wrong for sylvia's, for new york, for all of us? >> the stakes of getting this wrong means utter annihilation. i mean my dad said it best. he said tren'ness, if this mandate doesn't go into play, we are in for -- not be something that is easy. unfortunately we've done -- we've dealt with difficult things in the past and we just

rise to the occasion. we haven't seen anything like this in our lifetime, in my personal lifetime. what we know, the facts are the amount of people that get the vaccination versus the amount of people that don't get vaccinated, which category has more deaths? which category has more hospitalizations? i understand this information to be true. it's what i've -- it's what i've witnessed. i'm evident of that. so i don't see any other solution. if there is, please, by all means introduce it, whomever you are, so that we can get back to our country being healthy, our world being healthy, so that we can shore up our businesses, so that our country, our residents can have places to not only enjoy but to feel safe, you

know. we take a lot of things for granted and we tend to think that certain rights are our right when it's actually a privilege. and when it comes down to other people being impacted by my decision, then that's what this boils down to. it's just like drinking and driving. >> god bless you. thank you for speaking out and spending some time with us. tren'ness woods-black, thank you so much. we'll see you at the restaurant. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a very short break. do not go anywhere, we're just getting started. do not go anywht getting started. i got you. ♪ all by yourself. ♪ go with us and get millions of flexible booking options. expedia. it matters who you travel with. ♪ ♪ expedia. oh, son of a poppyseed! ah, there's no place like panera.

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i have to go to the lawyers, to john eisenberg, our senior counsel for the national security council to basically say you tell eisenberg ambassador bolton told me i am not part of this whatever drug

deal that mulvaney and sundland are cooking up. >> did you speak to the lawyers? >> i certainly did. >> the president is attacking you. what effect do you think that has on other witnesses' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing? >> it's very intimidating. >> my sitting here today in the u.s. capitol talking to elected leaders is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the soviet union and come to the united states of america for our family. do not worry, i'll be fine for telling the truth. this is america. this is the country that i've served and defended, that all of my brothers have served. and here, right matters. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in the east. you're in for a treat.

that right there is what valor looks like. that is the best of america. those are some of the brave men and women of the trump administration testifying against then president of the united states, donald trump, in the first impeachment trial because the truth and democracy matter to them. consider their bravery as donald trump's allies in congress continue today to dodge, obfuscate and lie about their interactions with donald trump this time around the events of january 6th. as democrats in the house gear up for a subpoena fight against elected officials who could shed light on the events of that day. remember the example of fiona hill, maria and mr. vindman who told the truth in the weeks and months leading up to the now infamous july 25th, 2019, phone

call between donald trump and ukrainian president. in a brand new book entitled "here right matters" after a powerful moment in his testimony we just heard, vindman shines the light on it. here he is on the moment he knew that what he heard on that call was outright corruption. he writes this. quote, i do remember looking around the conference room when the meeting broke up, knowing that others, including my boss, had heard what i'd heard. in that moment i realized something right away. nobody else was going to say anything about it. if i didn't report up the chain of command what i knew, no one might ever find out what the president was up to with ukraine and the 2020 u.s. election. i knew what i had to do. i'd known from the moment i heard the president say what he said. regardless of any impact on the president, the domestic and

foreign policy consequences, or personal costs, i had no choice but to report what i'd heard. vindman, whose family fled the soviet union for brooklyn, new york, when he was just a child was optimistic that in a free society, justice would prevail. but his ideals were soon confronted by the force of a corrosive and toxic right-wing in america in the era of donald trump. vindman writes this. today, in our life as a family, there's before impeachment and after impeachment. when we turned on fox news, laura ingraham's guests were john yoo, the former justice department official in the george w. bush administration, and alan dershowitz. they accused me of being a traitor to the united states. now we knew we were in a before and after moment. hearing me called a traitor on a tv show viewed by millions set our family into after impeachment. here was yet another new terrain. vindman goes on to describe fears for his family's safety,

even as he faced retaliation from within the white house in the wake of his public testimony. to protect my family now receiving threats at the house and to get the administration to stop harassing me, i considered moving us out of our home and onto base for security purposes. our greatest effort as a family, however, was to refuse to allow the mail strom of crude political attacks on me to shake us up. i'm grateful that ellie, my daughter, was only 8 during this period. now it's different. she's older and more attuned and sensitive to our situation. she asks whether people like daddy or donald trump. the choice between the truth and trump bravely made by alexander vindman and his colleagues who testified in trump's first impeachment is where we start this hour. joining us is alexander vindman, author of the book we've been reading from, "here, right

matters, an american story." i have to first tell you we have covered you and your story and your experience and the smears against you very closely here. it's a privilege to get to talk to you. how are you doing? >> well, thank you for having me on. i'm very much looking forward to having this conversation. i appreciate your coverage in the past and shining a light on the play of not just myself but other public servants who were under attack during this moment in time. i year on, i guess i'm doing okay. i'm still not quite sure i figured out what i want to do with my life moving toward. i'm working on some productive things, a doctorate in international affairs, advocating for democracy and democratic renewal. but this is not where i planned to be, and i'm still trying to figure things out, but we're okay. thank you for asking. >> i was going to start somewhere else with the part of your story and intersection of

impeachment but i just want to follow up. if you hadn't ended up working in a white house and reporting up the chain of command to a commander in chief like donald trump, what would you be doing? and i ask that because so many people who we've come to know, whether it's jim comey or andrew mccabe or bill taylor, marie yovanovitch, so many incredible public servants with expertise in their areas are now doing something else. i wonder if you think if you hadn't collided with donald trump what you'd be doing? >> well, that's a very interesting question. i would say i would be doing a different form of what i'm attempting to do today, which is continue to be a public servant, just out of uniform. what i would be doing right now is i would have finished war college. i would be in a high value assignment someplace in the world advancing u.s. national security interests. that's where i envisioned myself being before the white house and even before these events

unfolded. that may have been taken away from me, but i was offered another opportunity in the way that i now have a voice to advocate with a megaphone of sorts for the things that are important to me. that's national security, that's support to public servants, and that's also values-based leadership and holding people accountable. that's where i'm applying my efforts today. >> do you think the need to protect our democracy here at home in america is an unexpected need for your expertise as opposed to strengthening young democracies in other countries? >> that's an excellent assessment. i never thought i'd be looking at the united states in the same way i looked at backsliding democracies somewhere else. i'm not arguing that the u.s. is backsliding. there has been some slippage. under the last four years there's been an enormous erosion of the good order of governance and the operations of

departments and agencies. but i spent most of my time, most of my career looking externally at how to help those countries. now i have to try to reshape my mind to help the united states harden democracy for the next time it's challenged, for the next time there's an authoritarian-like leadership, because donald trump was not an effective authoritarian. he didn't have what it takes. he didn't have the capabilities to do that. but he did as much damage as he possibly could and he continues to do that damage. i'm going to do everything in my power to prevent this country turning into a place where right doesn't matter. >> what do you think so threatened donald trump and rudy giuliani about the principles and the patriotism as exhibited by ambassador yovanovitch and fiona hill and yourself? why couldn't that coexist with his plans? >> because, frankly, he's a

corrupt individual and personal loyalties and loyalty to him personally are paramount. having a system that works properly, people are accountable to their oaths under the constitution is a risk and a threat. i'm very proud that you started the segment by highlighting my colleagues, masha yovanovitch and fiona hill, because in a way i think that was a silver lining, that a lot of america got a chance to see excellent public servants. i'm privileged to be counted amongst that group, doing their duties, standing up to defending democracies and in a way inspiring younger generations to continue to serve, to continue to undertake the passion that i found in public service. >> what was your -- i know you've testified to this in the impeachment and i know you write about it, but i wonder if you can just share for all of us because we spent so much time really trying to understand at a

granular level what everyone else did. we know what you did and we know why you felt safe doing it, because you felt the right thing would ultimately be the best way to protect the country from this corrupt call, this corrupt effort to extort one of our allies, hold military aid over him. but what did everybody else do? and how did you feel about that? >> nicolle, i don't know if i have a very satisfying answer. i've asked myself how far i was willing to go to defend this country. i was -- i was willing to sacrifice my career and put my family in danger to protect this nation. and i just don't understand other folks that swore an oath to this nation not living up to their obligations. the stakes are too high in government to allow the corruption of fundamental institutions. and i don't know why folks chose to -- i mean i can guess there

is an element of careerism, an element of self-enrichment, there's an element of self-agrand diesing. but i can attest to why i did what i did, because it was the right thing to do. i tried to do the best i can to do it in the right way, but i had no doubt it was the right thing to do. >> and you're also bound as a member of the military, and i think we've all become students of the oath that separates people like yourself and general milley from other political appointees, maybe people like john bolton and others. but i wonder if you could speak to what it was like to watch the commander in chief try to undermine the democracy, something that your speaking out and sacrificing your career and reputation, could have stopped if republicans had heeded the call? >> there was -- i went into the

white house eyes wide open understanding this is going to be an imperfect administration, but i had something to contribute. i had capabilities and skills i could offer the administration to help them navigate a very difficult foreign policy and diplomatic relationships. and i maintained my commitment to doing that and supporting the administration until the president crossed the brightest of red lines, which was attacking the very foundation of our system, which is free and fair elections and the peaceful transition of power. at that point there was no -- i could no longer take my reverence for the office of the presidency and have that supersede my duty. that's, frankly, what i acted on. i acted on my duty. you know, events unfolded the way they did, but it's something that i could live with. it's something that i could rebuild from. it's good that i talk about in the book about restarting, just

like my father did. we all kind of face paramount challenges that we need to overcome. sometimes that means restarting and starting a new path. but i don't have any regards in that regard. >> i want to read some more from what you write about this chapter. i could hardly believe what i was hearing. i knew that giuliani had been publicly pushing the false biden story. and i'd been disturbed to hear sondland suggest to ukrainian officials that if ukraine pursued certain investigations, zelensky would get a white house visit. still for all of my long-running concerns i had refused to imagine that i would ever hear a president of the united states ask a foreign head of state, a state dependent on vital u.s. security aid, to in essence manufacture compromising material on an american citizen in exchange for u.s. support. the president was brazenly involving not only himself but also attorney general barr, as well as his personal attorney

giuliani in a wholly improper effort. john bolton writes about this that came out after impeachment. if it came out before impeachment do you think it would have made a difference among the republicans in the united states senate? >> it may or may not have. what's galling about john bolton's actions is that they were self-enriching and he profited from it. he got his book deal, he made a lot of money, and he saved everything he had for that story. unfortunately that's the way i think too many senior leaders behave. they don't behave based on ethics and values, they behave based on a way to enrich themselves. i couldn't live with myself if i

did that. i took the actions i thought i could live, with the actions that i knew i could explain to my daughter, my young daughter now and when she gets older. in a way, this is the lesson i think i want to try to communicate to her as she gets older. i didn't start out this way. i started out maybe a bit of a rascal, a troublemaker growing up. but i formed myself into the person that wanted to be through service, through military service and this is the story i guess i'm trying to communicate is that we are all capable of taking these actions. we have public servants that take these actions every day to protect democracy. it's a positive story. it's something that we should keep in mind when we think about how our government operates, that there are wonderful human beings that are purely looking to advance u.s. interests. >> but are they winning?

>> that's a tough one. i think we have a significant reprieve with the biden administration. but that's only the beginning of the story. unless we have a full accounting of the last four years, of the corruption of the trump administration, we will not buttress our institutions to resist the next time this happens. and if i had one bit of criticism towards the biden administration, which has a lot of competent folks, is that i think there's a lot more to be done on accountability that has not been done. we need to take a look at what -- how our departments and agencies were undermined, the kinds of actions that people took within those departments and agencies that were counter to u.s. interests, and for the time being i think we're -- we do have all those good people in place. four more years of trump we probably would have lost an

entire generation of competent civil servants. we have a moment in which we can build back better, but that requires accountability. >> i see it the way you do. i need you to say more. do you envision really unearthing and transparency as a disinfectant to understand the way donald trump corrupted the justice department and the pentagon and other agencies? say more about what you'd like to see the biden administration do, because i think they'd listen to you. >> sure. so i think it's interesting that there's a lot of wishful thinking, including from myself, about this idea that once the election -- after the election, after inauguration, the ship would be back on course and we could move forward, we could work on all these enormous challenges facing this country, from infrastructure to endemic racism to inequality. those are extremely important

tasks. but we have not dealt with the trauma of the last four years and the corruption that we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg on. worse than that, we have a whole cohort of republicans that are continuing to undermine the good functioning of this government. unless we address these issues, unless president biden uses his bully pulpit to shine a light on these issues, i don't think we're well positioned for the next time this country is attacked. i have enormous faith in the american people. i have enormous faith in the public servants. i have enormous faith in the military. i know these institutions. but we've suffered. we have an open wound. that wound can't start healing until we apply some sort of ointment, some sort of treatment to it. and we're not there yet. >> and it seems that if i could just extend your wound analogy, i mean fox news, which is the network where laura ingraham and john yoo and john dershowitz

participated in a panel where they smeared you, slandered you and i called them chicken shit and i had to defend using that term on colbert, so i think we'll always be connected with our visceral disgust with how they treated truth tellers. but i wonder if you're confident that the wound could be cleaned out and healed with the most watched cable news channel including viewers in the military and law enforcement and some of these important institutions that walk the line for our country consuming so much propaganda. the most popular anchor is in hungary meeting with one of the world's sort of most notorious autocrats who's moving away from democracy, moving toward controlling the press and controlling private industry. i mean are you sure that four years is enough time to clean out our wounds and put us on the right path? >> i think we have an engaged electorate now, an electorate

that understood that we were on the precipice and was activated. 81 million people voted for someone other than donald trump, a twice impeached president, a one-term president. what we need to do is we need to keep people engaged. right only matters if we make right matter. and i think what we need to do is we just need to recognize that we are -- this is not back to business as usual. the american public should understand this. the biden administration should understand this. we cannot go back to business as usual until we deal with the fundamental issues that we have. the big lie, the disinformation campaign, the lies that continue to propagate the spread of covid and all these issues. this is where we need presidential resources, executive branch resources to address these matters. >> are you interested in being part of the ongoing conversation to make sure that this administration and the american people stay engaged in the

importance of everything you write about in this book and protect our democracy here at home? >> absolutely. it's one of the things i've committed myself to from the first day leaving uniform. i wrote an op-ed in "the washington post" -- >> i know. >> -- in which i talk about these things. i've recommitted myself to these activities. that's why i'm on the board of an ngo. these are things that i'm deeply passionate about. i look for every opportunity to try to contribute, including lending my own voice, as uncomfortable as it is, sitting in front of camera, lending my own voice to continue to shine a light on these issues. frankly, i can say this right now, that the folks that continue to enable president trump through the election, through the big lie, through insurrection, it is part of my mission to do everything i can to make sure those folks don't continue in government and to encourage other candidates that

will challenge them and defeat them and that's one of the ways we move forward and that's how this country builds back better. >> when you get done with your book tour, i hope you will make this program a regular stop in that effort. i share many of your hopes for this country and for our democracy, and it is a genuine privilege to speak to you. retired lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, thank you so much for writing the book. thank you so much for spending some time with us to talk about it. his new book "here, right matters" is out now. when we return, we are going to pick up on all the themes we've been discussing, including the striking parallels between trump's perfect phone call with zelensky and his calls to georgia's secretary of state and the doj to try to overturn the 2020 election results, as new reporting shows just how far that effort went. plus, why is tucker carlson doing his fox news show from hungary? we'll dig deeper into the right

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and everything else you love, it's a way better way to watch! cheer on team usa with xfinity x1. say "show me the olympics in 4k" so you can watch in stunning 4k ultra hd. i won this election by hundreds of thousands of votes. there's no way i lost georgia. there's no way. we won by hundreds of thousands of votes. do you think it's possible that they shredded ballots in fulton county? cause that's what the rumor is. and also that dominion took out machines. all i want to do is this. i just want to find 11,780

votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state. >> he didn't win the state. we all know that. when we heard that call, though, in which the ex-president pressures georgia's secretary of state to overturn the election results in his state to find those 11,000 and some odd votes, it shocked the system. at the same time, though, it was exactly what you'd expect, especially considering the last segment, because we've seen the pattern from donald trump. he makes up an unfounded claim to benefit himself and then pressures others in power to pursue it with vigor, whether it's pressuring the president of ukraine to find dirt on joe and hunter biden, whether it's pressuring the newly installed acting attorney general and his deputy to just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen or pressuring the top election official in georgia to find the exact amount of

votes he needed to win that state, it is all cut from the same playbook. new emails turned over to congressional investigators and reviewed by abc news show us how deeply and how high up inside the administration that mentality pervaded. the emails dated december 28th, 2020, show the former acting head of doj's civil division, jeffrey clark, circulating a draft letter which he wanted acting attorney general jeffrey rosen and acting deputy attorney general donoghue to sign off on having georgia convene a special session to investigate claims of voter fraud. luckily for our democracy, rosen and donoghue did not sign off on that letter from mr. clark. as we know, there was no widespread voter fraud. in fact georgia did three audits. there was no fraud. joining our conversation, frank figliuzzi, host of the bureau podcast. also joining us former

congresswoman donna edwards, and neal katyal is here, former affecting solicitor general and georgetown law professor. all three msnbc contributors. neal, i have to start with you and colonel vindman's experience of having his nose pressed right up to the glass of donald trump's corruption and then pull the thread all the way through to that call that we all heard, i believe it was the sunday before the tuesday insurrection of donald trump pressuring georgia's election officials to overturn the results in that state. what are your thoughts as the ex-president's corruption and maniacal attempt to undermine our democracy and stay in power come into fuller focus. >> well, i think what we're learning and from particularly the emails and letter today from jeff clark, who was president trump's acting assistant attorney general in the civil division, really shows that people in the trump justice department were literally the opposite of colonel vindman. instead of being by the book and

pro democracy, they did everything they could, nicolle, to subvert it. the letter that just came out today about this from jeffrey clark is one of the most preposterous legal documents i've ever read in my life. i think justice joseph story called it by its legal name, cuckoo for cocoa puffs. it goes to show these people were not doing law at all, they were doing politics. while you might expect that from the white house or the national security council where colonel vindman worked, the last place i would expect it is the place that frank and i worked, the united states justice department. it is unforgivable and just shows how important this january 6th investigation is. >> yeah, frank, if you could pick up on that, how urgently needed is a full accounting of all of donald trump and his

agents' efforts to undermine the rule of law and undermine our democracy? >> we need it now, we need it yesterday. i've said this before. the notion that we should let this lie because, you know, we want to heal the nation simply doesn't make any sense to me. tolerating injustice is not a way to get justice back. you get justice back by holding people accountable and showing the consequences. with regard to clark, my understanding is the doj ig may be looking at this entire set of facts. if he's not, he must, because it cries out for accountability. at the low end of the spectrum, clark is a lawyer. clark should be facing ethics charges in whatever bar he belongs to. at a maximum, we should look at possible criminal referral of these actions. he attempted to mess with a state election. he lied in this draft letter about evidence that simply does

not exist. that needs to be looked at. but far more importantly, as you're saying, this points right back to donald trump. clark didn't do this in a vacuum. remember what's going on around this very same time within just a week or two of each other, barr is resigning. attorney general barr is resigning and clark swiftly moves into action here to kind of take over doj from his corner of the building. and who's telling him to do that? probably not his mother or his wife, but that's what needs to get looked at. he's in concert with donald trump. that needs to be looked at because donald trump still has not been held accountable for his attempt to perpetuate the big lie. >> let me focus in on something that frank just said with you, neal, and then i want to bring donna into this conversation. a criminal referral could emerge from mr. horowitz' inspector general investigation of doj.

now, having covered four years of the trump-era doj it's intriguing to me that mr. horowitz is the only major agency ig who wasn't fired when pompeo's ig was fired, the pentagon's ig was fired, most of them were fired under the ex-president. horowitz remained. that said, i hope he does a stellar investigation of doj. but would you expect criminal referrals for someone like mr. clark? >> i think it's way too early, nicolle, to say. i certainly don't think the fact that donald trump left mr. horowitz in suggests that horowitz is in trump's pocket or anything like that. i mean i never want to attribute any strategic insight to trump when incompetence is the better explanation. usually that's how these things unfold. so, you know, there is the possibility the ig makes a criminal referral. there's also the possibility that the justice department opened its own investigation into this apart from the ig.

i really do think that is appropriate here for the reasons frank nailed on the head. jeff clark is a minor lackey at the justice department. he is not some high-ranking person. and yet it looks like he tried to maneuver to engineer to take over the justice department and replace acting attorney general rosen. that's not the kind of thing you dream up on your own, so there probably is a lot more there, as frank suggests. >> you know, donna, there's often this excuse structure that all of us, all four of us have given to the trump era for four years now that it's incompetent, it's not strategic, but it is in a strategic paradigm of donald trump using the state and the cover of the state for corrupt and malign purposes. in the case of the zelensky call, it was to hold foreign aid for an american ally at risk from attack from russia over them to get them to investigate hunter and joe biden.

i'm not saying mr. horowitz is in trump's pocket, but at a time when trump fired many inspectors general, he did not fire mr. horowitz. donna, what do you think, to colonel vindman's point, that he'd like to see this administration do more to examine and shine light on the degree to which corrupt individuals or malign actors reached the highest levels of some of the most important and potent government agencies? >> well, i mean i do think that in all of these agencies, it's really important to look beneath the covers and to root out the bad actors because this is behavior that we don't want repeated again so there has to be accountability. one of the things i'm struck by, it's no great surprise, is that donald trump was a very consistent offender. if you were attributing this to

a criminal behavior, you would say that he uses the exact same m.o. i'd like you to do us a favor, though. find the 11,780 votes. you know, i'll do the rest with republican congressmen if you just call it a corrupt election. a very consistent behavior. and there were bit players that donald trump uses, whether it was bill barr or, you know, or others in the justice department that he used them to carry out his bad behavior. and so yes, that has to be routed out. we don't want a president doing that in the future so we have to put the guardrails in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. >> you know, when you listen to the georgia call again, something -- i listened to it

that sunday night when it first came out. then i think we all were swept up in the horrors of january 6th. i recently listened to it again after georgia passed that state's voter suppression law and the parts of that law that change how the votes are counted. if you do that, donna, it is very clear that with the law in place now, what donald trump is asking for is far more likely to have transpired. >> well, that's right, because he was asking for both the governor and for secretary raffensperger to do things that they were not empowered to do under the previous law but they would be fully empowered to do under the current law, and that is substitute electors, audit an election. all of the things that donald trump wanted to happen that couldn't happen but certainly could now under the current law. i mean i relistened actually to this call, read the transcript,

and it's really clear to me that the things that donald trump was asking to do, many of them are now possible under the current law. >> they're definitely a whole lot easier and i dare say that was the point. donna edwards, thank you for spending some time with us today. frank figliuzzi and neal katyal are sticking around a little longer. when we return, the frightening and deepening alignment between conservatives in this country, the united states, and far right autocrats and strong men from faraway places. that story is next. es th at story is xtne millions of vulnerable americans struggle to get reliable transportation to their medical appointments. that's why i started medhaul. citi launched the impact fund to invest in both women and entrepreneurs of color like me, so i can realize my vision and give everything i've got to my company, and my community. i got you. for the love of people. for the love of community. for the love of progress.

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the devolvement of the american right into an autocratic movement in line with other autocratic movements in the world takes a big step this week. one of the loudest, most prominent voices on fox news, tucker carlson, opened his show on monday like this. >> if you care about western civilization and democracy and families and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by the leaders of our global institutions, you should know what is happening here right now. >> here is budapest, hungary, where carlson is broadcasting his show from all week and near where he'll speak at a right-wing conference. he also met with the country's prime minister, a leader he has praised profusely in the past. he is known for his autocratic practices. about carlsones celebration of

him, "the washington post" wrote carlson, of course, has said next to nothing about the autocratic character of orban's rule, which critics on both sides of the atlantic cast as a cautionary tale on how democracies back side. after all, orbannism represents the fevered dream of the right. the hungarian prime minister rules the a government steadily captured through a gerrymandering and a stacked judiciary. the media outlets are loyal to him while he proids over a network of patronage, and alleged graft, that ties in many of the country's industry. joining us is mark leibovich. frank figliuzzi is still here. mark, i thought of -- you and i have spent a lot of time, me working for and you covering john mccain. i thought of the old republican party. john mccain, obviously, isn't with us. he's thrashing around in his grave as he watches his party

now align itself with the same dictators he fought against. but i wonder what you make of it that there is just not a peep from the mitch mcconnells or the rob portmans. there's no one rebuking tucker carlson for wrapping both arms and both legs around victor orban this week. >> you don't even expect it anymore. at least a few years ago you'd have a few outliers, a few people shaking their fists and you'd have people asking the questions and at the very least you'd have a lot of republicans running in the other direction, not wanting to offend donald trump for his latest tweet or whatever. what's very interesting when you look at hungary is hungary is an exaggerated version of to some degree what donald trump would love to see in america as far as the media control. i read a statistic earlier that said that 90% of the media outlets are somehow in the control of president orban.

you know, obviously fox news is one cable news outlet, it's a very powerful one, but it's also spread to things like newsmax and one america. you know, facebook, there's like a hammer lock on the right to some very significant areas, talk radio and so forth. so i mean you just don't -- it's very protective of a conservative leader like donald trump with autocratic tendencies to have the protection of a lot of far right media outlets. and i guess in some ways tucker carlson is trying to import, you know, that sympathy across the ocean. it's unclear what he's doing but i think it's a pretty clear synergy right now. like you said, you don't hear a lot of critique about it. >> you know, frank, it's got a through line to the assault on the rule of law, which you didn't hear much protest for from the republican party. secretary mattis resigned from

his post as secretary of the defense department when we left our kurdish allies to die in syria. not much from the american right. never mind describing the press as enemy of the people. most of the leaders of the justice department and fbi as enemies of the state and accusing them of treason. what do we need to do to stop what colonel vindman described as slippage of our democracy, or is it too late? >> so the first half of the battle is recognizing the threat and the risk. i don't think most americans understand the gravity of this situation. i kind of view it as my mission as a national security contributor for this network to point out threat and risk. i'm not here to critique another network, i'm not here to critique tucker carlson, who should be very grateful the freedoms we enjoy as americans that allow him to travel wherever he wants, hold whatever beliefs he wants to and resist

any pressure, free of pressure as a media member on his particular show. ironically he's chosen to set up shop this week in a nation that increasingly stands for none of that and has wrapped itself in white identity movement, nationalism, anti-refugee. here's where i'm going to point this out so people can do that, first half of the battle, recognize the threat. this is where this goes and it's not pretty. this leads to demonization of the other. hungary right now is about white identity nationalism and hatred of the other. people who don't look like them, people who don't speak or worship like them. they have wrapped it in christianity and family values. you heard that in the clip you played of tucker's opening comments. but that's how this works. and it's happening here and now. and so we need to understand america is going to decide what it wants to be when it grows up, but does it want to be the country that doesn't welcome people like my grandparents into the country, doesn't stand for

the inscription on the statue of liberty, doesn't welcome anyone any more who doesn't look or talk like us. hungary would probably not allow tucker carlson to immigrate. he possesses no particular skill sets, he's of no value to them. they wouldn't want him. is that the country that we want to establish. >> proof that irony is dead over there on that other network. frank figliuzzifigliuzzi, thank spending some time with us. mark is sticking around. when we return, the twice impeached ex-president is digging in again fighting to keep his tax returns secret again. that story is next. ain. that story is next

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heads up. thank you! water tastes like, water. so we fixed it. mio the ex-president is continuing his quest from prevent the world from seeing what's in his tax returns. trump's lawyers are urging the federal judge to block the treasury department and the irs from handing the returns to the house ways and means committee. trump's lawyers argued that the committee's reason for seeking a return is a pretax for wanting to look for something embarrassing. we are back with mark liebowitz and katya. i want to go back to something that i thought of today, this is mit romney in 2016 on what would

be in donald trump's tax returns of importance to the american public. we'll select our nominees to see what their transactions would look like to see if there is an issue there. with donald trump's case, it is likely to be a bomb shell. there is concerns of donald trump's finances and entanglement from inside his party for half a decade. >> yes, i know, it is clearly something that he wants to keep secret and private. i think there is a lot of some surprise that it has not leaked at this point. it has been out there and a lot of revelation around it. it has been in the hands of prosecutors and the mueller report probably saw it. it is precedented but also

conduit. it is exposing to donald trump. yeah, this is another chapter of this, i don't think there is a lot political, sure. i think l of tolerance is baked into his support. i think it is another step in the process. >> i mean neil, ironically, the way to avoid leaking is giving it to the congressional committee, they're not allowed to dispose it to the public. what kind of legal case do trump's lawyers have here? >> it is not a strong one. looks like we find a draft that donald trump could not ducked. this is not hard. donald trump is worried of his investigators that the investigation is a political attack on him. there is no exception in the law because donald trump feels like

a victim. that's not a thing in the law. the only people that this law is not clear to are the people in the world of trump's clan who thinks donald trump can install himself as president in august and people like jeffery clark who we are talking about earlier write these bogus letters and destroying what the law in words of what the english language means and this is ridiculous and tax returns should come out to congress right away. >> do you think they will? do you think it is so faulty, neal that it will not prevail to the judge. >> katyal and mark, thank you so much. a quick break, we'll be right back. u so much a quick break, we'll be right back ♪ (energetic music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. >> a quick question, you are the hardest working person in the news. you are in for your show and you got rachel's show last night. is it coffee or sleep? >> it is coffee in the mommy's mom. i got to talk to colonel vindman today. >> i hear you, you have been doing it, shout-out to your mommy mug. >> you asked the question. >> thank you, ari.