we have a lot more coverage coming up. deadline white house picks up right now. it's 4:00 in the east at such a crucial moment along the russia ukraine border. president biden just a few moments ago from the east room of the white house sharing with the american people and the world his hopes for a diplomatic solution. as well as his warning to the kremlin should that solution not come to pass. the reality right now is this. there is still a significant gap between putin's words and his actions. he met with germany's new chancellor in moscow today and suggested the kremlin had decided to partially withdraw some of its troops. of course that would be a welcome development for peace and diplomacy. as of yet, there is zero

satellite evidence to support his claim. as far as we know, putin still has some 150,000 troops surrounding ukraine on three sides. there are warships conducting drills in the black sea and military exercises going on in belarus. within the past few hour, we learned that several key ukrainian websites including those belonging to two of the country's largest banks and its defense ministry were temporarily knocked offline today. what the ukrainian government is calling an attack. it is still unknown who is responsible. all that making for a highly combustible international situation with several potential outcomes. nbc news has confirmed this morning that the biden administration has assembled a diverse group of experts calling them a tiger team to game out all those different possibilities and to plan a u.s. response to each one of them. as we said, president biden addressed the crisis last hour. here's some of what he had to

say. >> they're still open for the sake of historic responsibility. russia and united states share for global stability for the sake of our common future to choose diplomacy. but let there be no doubt if russia commits this breach by invading ukraine, responsible nations around the world will not hesitate to respond. do not stand for freedom where it is at risk today surely pay a steeper price tomorrow. >> that breaking news is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. the anchor and moderator of washington week on pbs, also an msnbc contributor. john cipher is here, former russia cia station chief. msnbc international affairs analysts former u.s. ambassador

to russia joins us. and nbc news chief foreign correspondent, richard engel is live in ukraine. let me ask you, ambassador, about the importance of the president making his diplomatic efforts and military planning part of a very public conversation with the american people. your reaction to today's speech. >> well, it was a necessary speech as we talked before and i thought it was a very clear speech. he made it very clear what his administration is trying to do on the coercive side and he made it very clear what they're trying to do on the diplomatic side and he made it clear this is not just about ukraine. this is about the future of the international system and it's a fight between democracy versus autocracy. in a short speech directly aimed at the american people, i thought it was extremely effective. >> ambassador, can you tell us what's actually happening? this news has come out today

that putin, broke overnight, that putin said he would withdraw some troops. it's clear the intelligence doesn't support that yet. what's going on? >> i can't tell you, nicolle, what's going on. i do not know what's going on. i would just say reading some tea leaves, here's a couple of things i would note. one, we've heard about troop withdrawals before. we've been through that dance. i'm not prepared to say that is happening now. lots of other indicator they're building up. more importantly is what you're seeing in the message about negotiations. we saw putin sitting with lavrov. that was all staged on purpose for lavrov to say i think negotiations are working and his boss said, good. that's an indication they're

thinking about negotiations. on the other side, it's important to note the russian parliament just voted to recognize the two people's republics. that's a non-binding resolution. and putin in one of his press conferences today well, there's genocide happening and that to me is a very dangerous sign because remember, when he invaded ukraine is last time and annexed crimea, the argument for that, the pretext for that was that he was protecting ethnic russians in crimea, protecting them from military threats from kyiv. i think you see mixed signaling and i think that means putin has decided what he's going to do. >> richard, some of the other news that broke today was about these cyber attacks in ukraine. tell us what you know about that and your reporting on the ground.

>> the cyber attacks got people nervous because there's been all this talk that if there's going to be a russia invasion, that a precursor would be some sort of cyber attack. that the russians would try to shut down the phone network, disrupt the military, disrupt communications and financial sector and we saw a little bit of that, but it was not devastating, but could have been a probing attack. no attribution has been laid so far. roughly at the same time, you saw two government websites, the defense ministry and the armed forces network, go down. denial of service attacks. they were flooded by use in order to deny those websites the ability to function. and two banks including the most popular bank in this country.

and it's app went down. so people who use mobile banking on their phone, which is the most common way people do their banking here, couldn't access their money. couldn't transfer money. couldn't see their account balances. now according to the bank, no money was stolen, but to have the most popular bank locked out for about six or seven hours today sent chills down people's spines. it's not just inconvenient when you worry about your money suddenly disappearing and you don't have access to it, it's very unnerving, especially in this environment where although the government has been telling people, don't worry, everything is fine, they are listening to the news and checking on the internet and hearing these statements like we just heard from president biden warning that there are 150,000 troops and all kinds of equipment and that they could come at any moment without warning. so to then have suddenly your banking cut and ministry of defense website go down is

unsettling. >> richard, ambassador mcfall said something on this program yesterday that has stuck with me. he talked about the stoic of the ukrainian people about their concerns about war. can you speak to that? is that what you're seeing? >> it's important to understand there are some divisions in this country. that is part and parcel to putin's thinking. it's part of his calculus. there is a divide between the ukrainian speaking west and the largely russian speaking far east. and it is a bilingual country. there's not a divide necessarily or animus between the groups, but the people closer to russia tend to have closer ties with

russia. there was just an opinion poll out today that showed in the far west, about 70 people would, 70% of people would resist a russian incursion of invasion. that number dropped closer to 30% in the east. like there was a degree of a sympathetic population in crimea. but this country is a large country and the people move freely between the east and west and there are a lot of troops in the east. in fact, most of the most capable ukrainian troops have been moved toward the east. have been moved toward russia. it is not simply if you rolled into the east you'd be embraced by a welcoming populous. there are soldiers who would be determined to fight against him.

many positioned in the south and east along those conflict lines. there's a resolve. there are some divisions. what we've been seeing is we've been going to people's houses. we've been talking to people and some don't, aren't concerned at all. they want to live in suspended disbelief that nothing could happen, nothing will ever happen, then there are those who are starting to make plans. they're starting to look at what roads they might take. which documents they might want to keep and then some how they could fight if necessary and get weapons training and get medical training. >> this planning for this extremely combustible situation complicated ukrainian politics is something that the white house appears to be planning rather meticulously for. can you speak to this reporting in "the washington post" about tiger teams and your reaction to the president's speech?

>> based on my conversations with white house officials, the white house is absolutely planning for what could be this decision by putin to invade ukraine. now, you heard in the president's speech i think a really, him reaching out to the american people to try to repair prepare them for what could be domestic consequence. here's a president who ran on ending endless wars, explain here's what would happen at home and he talked about the fact there could be energy impacts here. he talked about the idea that even though this might be disruptive in some ways to american life, that the price of defending freedom and the price of making sure nato allies and members of nato that they continue to be defended by all of the different oaths and promises that nato members make is worth that cost. so i think we one, have to really pause and understand that this is president biden who was very, very defensive when it came to withdrawing from afghanistan.

who had to deal with all sorts of criticisms about his decisions. he's saying americans, this might get ugly for you. this might impact your life. i think it's really important that he said this could be a war of choice on behalf of russia and a self-inflicted wound. this is president biden essentially saying we want diplomacy, but let's be clear, this is going to hurt russia and we're going to make sure it's painful for you, putin. it was a strong speech. it was a speech that felt like here was president biden really trying to be very, very stoic and somber about the situation that's playing out here. he also was very interesting that he wanted in his speech really directing it to the american people to say that american intelligence does not show that russia's pulling back. it's not him sharing information, but it's also him explaining it to every day americans saying this is not getting better based on our

intelligence here at home. >> john cipher, there has been such a strategic use of the intelligence products and "the new york times" has some great reporting from the weekend by reporters about how this has been a concerted effort to avoid war. that declassifying this information is designed to keep putin on his toes. if that's even achievable. your reaction. >> i think that's exactly what's happening here. the administration is sort of wisely trying to use all of its tools to avoid war. and so there are deterrence. they're working with all of our nato allies and other allies. it's interesting we're using information. selective use of intelligence to put out and avoid this kind of war. i understand oftentimes generals

have been nervous about this. they don't trust the government. remember the iraq war, the intelligence turned out not to be true. but here, we're trying to avoid war. and secondly, this information is not meant to try to convince american citizens anything. anybody except one person, putin. he's the one that knows this information is true or not. he knows that there's intelligence information, he knows if we're saying people are planning to do a, b, or c, it has to affect his calculus. oh, what else do they know? i was planning to do this secretly. now i can't do that. i think the administration has been wise to do this and use information that way. >> john, what is your sense of how president biden's speech in the last half hour will be received by the kremlin and by putin? >> well, you know, let's

remember putin manufactured this crisis. one thing that president biden said in this speech is he's providing some you know, off ramps. keeping diplomacy open here. but actually it's not the u.s.' job to give putin off ramps. he manufactured the crisis. he can manufacture excuses to get out of it. it's the job of the administration to keep up the pressure here to make putin realize the costs are too high to take this kind of action. so i don't think the kremlin is going to you know, if they want to back off here, there's things in that speech that give them an opportunity to do so. if they want to attack, there's things they can claim to do so. the thing for the administration is if putin does back off, not to reward him for doing so. he's going to continue to be a threat and make sure we remain strong in that resolve. >> if you could just sort of wrap up the events in the last sort of 12 hours for us and tell

us what you're watching for in the next 12 hours. >> well, the president of the united states doesn't give a speech about an impending war unless they think it's a real threat and you remember from last friday when jake sullivan told americans to leave and now you just had the president of the united states telling americans to leave ukraine. that suggests that they are very concerned about an impending invasion. and at the same time, they're trying desperately to provide whatever you know, attempts to start a negotiation with putin. when the president addresses the american people as he just did, i think that means it's a great moment in the history of europe. >> richard, your final thoughts. >> you asked me earlier about how ukrainians are feeling about this and i talked about the divisions here between east and west and the linguistic dynamics

and how that might play out if there was to be some sort of invasion and insurgency after that. but there's also an important factor in this. that president biden talked about. this for ukrainians is an experiment in their democracy. this country has been sovereign since the collapse of the soviet union in 1991 and they have been racing toward democracy for the last eight years. and they started out of the blocks quickly with the 2014 revolution. and they have made tremendous strides and progress over the last several years. have been coming to ukraine for many years now. the roads have been getting better. there's a different mood. if you go to kyiv, it's a hip and happening city. not some sleepy old soviet town. it feels like it is changing. ideologically and commercially. so they don't want to go back to what this country was 20, 30, 40

years ago. they don't, many people here, most people here, don't have particularly fond memories of their ties to the soviet union. they remember the famine that killed around 4 million people in this country. they were chernobyl. yes, others have different kinds of memories about the soviet union, but in general, they're embracing a different future and that's why i think president biden framed this as a battle between autocracy and those who seek democracy and freedom. >> ambassador reminds us all the time, it's one happening within a lot of countries. we're grateful to all four of you for starting us off. thank you so much. when we come back, the radicalized gop at home did not start with donald trump. a stunning, brand-new book looks

at what sent them running into the open arms of the now disgraced ex-president and how the base is now all in on all of it. "new york times" reporter and author jeremy peters is our guest. stay with us. author jeremy peters is our guest. the world needs you back. i'm retired greg, you know this. people are taking financial advice from memes. [baby spits out milk] i'll get my onesies®. ♪ “baby one more time” by britney spears ♪ e*tradom morgan stanley. at intra-cellular therapies, we're inspired by our circle. a circle that includes our researchers, driven by our award-winning science, who uncover new medicines to treat mental illness. it includes the compassionate healthcare professionals, the dedicated social workers, and the supportive peer counselors we work with to help improve - and even change - people's lives. moving from mental illness to mental wellness starts in our circle. this is intra-cellular therapies.

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has just ruled against sarah palin who did more than anybody walking the earth in turning media coverage into a right wing grievance issue. in her lawsuit against "the new

york times." in what is an unusual set of circumstances, the verdict doesn't matter because the judge in that case already said he would toss out palin's lawsuit against "the new york times," wrote an op-ed in which the times falsely linked our rhetoric to a mass shooting. from politico's reporting, a judge has ruled a liable lawsuit should be thrown out because her lawyers failed to produce adequate evidence or acted recklessly. the case was effectively a shot across the bough for a figure who made attacking the media central to her political and personal persona. remember her invocation of lame stream media whose rise in the republican party proceeding the wholesale takeover of the gop by one donald j. trump.

jeremy puts it -- about the republican party's lurch to whatever this is, the frin ji right, quote, all the conservative populous who were ant see dants to trump, palin was his closest contemporary. as he puts it, her popularity was a flashing warning sign. he writes this, quote, trump for the most part didn't bring anything inside the republican party that wasn't there. he just validated the suspicions and fed the anxieties of tens of millions of americans who had long feared they were one presidential election away from losing their purchase on social and political power. joining us now is jeremy peters, "new york times" political reporter and author of that new book, insurgency, how republicans lost their party and got everything they ever wanted. also joining us, michael steel

who's head of the rnc was written about by journey. now university of alabama law professor, joyce vance joins us. jeremy, i thought i was the only one that stayed up at night thinking about palin as this canary in the coal mine for everything that came afterward. i'm very reassured by reading your book that i was not the only one having these thoughts. i want to deal first with the breaking news about the lawsuit against the times. do you have a sense on how that came to be? >> so, the jury weighed the evidence and i was in the courtroom listening to e-mails that were entered into evidence and what the jurors ultimately weighed and decided against was

this notion that the times was out to smear her. that they ignored evidence that pointed to the probably falsity of the claim in this editorial. the jury didn't apparently buy it and neither did the judge. both of whom came down against sarah palin. now, of course she is very likely to appeal the legal experts have told me an appeal will be harder because she has lost twice. once with the judge and once with the jury and appeals courts tend to be very differential to juries. that's not to say this is the last word of course and it's probably not likely to be the last word from palin herself because as you just pointed out, nicolle, she has made her political brand all, it's hinged in large part on her being an antagonist of the mainstream media from gotcha questions, the

level that katie couric, the charge she levelled at her, who by the way, palin was dragging on twitter last night once again. so you know, sarah palin is one of these figures we haven't heard from in a long time, but whoes, the emotions she activated among voters. the grievances that she played into are very much at the center of our political system right now and at the heart of donald trump's republican party and what she figured out before he was a national political figure was that who your enemies were was just as important as who likes you, if not more important and her enemies just like trumps would be, were elite institutions and powerful people. that included everyone from "the new york times" to the leadership of the republican party and she was very skilled at having her followers see her as a victim of the same forces

that they felt victimized by. >> so, jeremy, why doesn't she inherent the earth? why is it trump? >> i think that she at the time in 2011 as i report in the book over which you know is another way to see how the seeds were planted for donald trump early on, in 2011, some of the same activists who would run donald trump's campaign and work in his white house including steve bannon and dave bossy, went to meet with palin in a clandestine meeting in scottsdale and tried to talk her into running for president against mitt romney. they told her she could probably win the republican nomination against romney because as one of them put it, she was the only rock star in a field of candidates that were like bad cover bands. the problem was that she didn't want to do it.

she was worried about spending time away from her family and you know, the 2008 campaign with john mccain took a real toll on her and her family. it exhausted her and what i was left where from the conversations with the people i spoke to for this book was that when they, when she came time for her to ask questions during this presentation, she kept going back to how much time would i have to spend away from alaska. so i just don't think her heart was in it. >> joyce, on the twin developments of, and even before the judge threw out the case and the jury decided against her, there were moments that bordered on comedic. she was objecting during her own testimony, shouting out objection. i know from briefing her she gleans a lot of what she understands to be the way things are from what she's seen on television. i don't know why she was

objecting to herself. what do you make of the possibility that this moves forward and has a different outcome? >> so this goes on appeal. there was something a little be bit quirky that happened here. the supreme court has clearly given judges in this sort of case the ability to direct a verdict, which is what the judge did. he in essence decided she had not made out her case of actual malice, which is the requirement for a public figure. you've got a heavier burden than if you were just saying you had been defamed in your life. she has to show actual malice. either that "the new york times" knew their comments were untrue or they were reckless. because the judge made that decision that he would direct the verdict no matter how the jury came back against palin, she can now argue on appeal that

perhaps the jury got wind of that while they were deliberating. she'll try to make hay out of that, but i think this be it will be unsuccessful. this is essentially game over on this case. >> michael steel, i'm going to read some of what jeremy has written about you, but first, your thoughts about sarah palin's libel suit. >> i think the libel suit is, is part of an overarching narrative that continues against the mainstream media. against the establishment order in the gop and i think it also speaks to some of the things that drives sarah palin on this front. i don't see her so much playing

catch up with trump. i think she has successfully carved out her place inside the party, but i think what she does is what she does with this suit in some respects is just put a little peg and reminder out there that she was a voice that very early on galvanized the base call to order the new order of things. and put it in a context that was once a very exciting like that moment at the convention when lights go out and she continues to go through her speech and just galvanizes not just the party, but the country. but then in our post washington career, staying in touch with that base and the suit is sort of a reflection of that. regardless of the outcome of a judge or jury, there would be fundraisers had. there will be money raised. there will be organization

around this fight very much in the same frame that we've seen before. michael, i want read what jeremy writes about now. about your tenure running the rnc. staff pressed you about using the conspiracy theory about obama's birth certificate as a way to raise money. one day, he let his guard down. quote, they lost in 2006 and just got their plot cleaned by the black guy. it made steel realize something he found incredibly depressing. this was what they were saying to his face. what were they saying behind his back. i know this was a long time ago. it's shocking, right, to see it in print. >> it is. and i appreciate my time talking to jeremy about this. it was a little bit cathartic.

little bit on the couch moment to sort of relive some of that, but and to be honest, i also know a lot of what was said behind my back. the one thing i learned growing up in washington, d.c., nobody knows everybody you know so they wind up, people start talking about the word gets back to you. since i've been here longer than most, i know a lot of people. but the reality of it is it said to me that even relates back to before we got into the period with trump and certainly even with the tea party that there was this energy beneath the surface that was really retching at the party trying to move it and push it in a direction, which is again one of the reasons why i gave the speech. i believe it was at the national press club, declaring that the southern strategy was over. i wanted to state the direction

as national chairman i wanted the party to go. i had made it very clear when i went to address the naacp with the same idea that not only am i going link the history of the party to the african american community, but i want the african american community to help lead the party into the future. along with other communities. but there was this internal resistance, which we've now seen play out over and over again crystallized in that charlottesville moment when you have you know, the kkk and the nazi party and all these other folks down in charlottesville reeking havoc and the president of our, of my party, our country, says well, there are fine people on both sides. it really kind of speaks to that moment inside of the party where the response to that and this is the key thing, was largely deafening silence. and you realize in that moment we've lost not just that battle, but possibly that war in trying to pull the party away from that

1968 kind of mindset of the way we win elections and the way we hold power is through white men voting for us. >> and a lot of people will point to fox news eight years of coverage of the obama presidency as being a link to that. jeremy reports that out and an incredible example of one maga lawmaker and how his behavior speaks volumes as to where the party is today. more on the other side of a break. don't go anywhere. the other sid break. break. don't go anywhere. pods, your personal moving and storage team. ♪♪♪ my name is austin james. as a musician living with ds, fingersticks can be a real challenge.

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♪ oh what a wonderful world ♪ inside the new book, there's an incredible story that encapsulates the lunacy and donald trump. he writes about the experience of freshman republican jackson on january 6th. i want to ask you to tell the story here and also just explain why this matters. i mean, there is a ongoing dbe warning from the department of homeland security that intersects with the central pillars of trumpism and the republican party. the grievances about public health measures. the lies about election fraud which are completely unfounded and in all that enter ronny

jackson. >> so this is a congressman, now congressman, former doctor of trump and obama's. who was four days into his job on january 6th and had just come back from the stop the steal rally on the national mall. was inside the house chamber when rioters tried to smash through the doors and so feared for his life, took off his necktie because he thought to himself he didn't want the give them something to strangle him with if they breached the doors. that fear of dying apparently didn't last very long because when jackson came back to vote on the certification of the election, he voted in donald trump's favor, to reject it. so this what's been so amazing to me over the course of reporting this book has been the

level of denial and delusion that has defined the modern republican party. this didn't happen overnight, as you alluded to earlier. a lot of this had to do with the conservative media and this information bubble where bad news didn't intrude. in one of my conversations with trump, he took pride in this. he took pride in the fact that he had helped hurt fox news by attacking them when they called the race for biden and said he would win arizona. turns out a lot of people don't like to hear negativity toward me and this idea that false information as long as it was positive is fundamental to electing republicans these days is really an unprecedented and dark development in our nation's history. it's all summed up with the experience by jackson on the house floor. fearing for his life. a guy who had served in combat

zones. thinking he might die at the hands of people he thought he represented then discarding all that because of his political ambition and his desire to retain power because to say anything against trump is essentially political suicide these days. >> i mean, michael steel, i think jeremy's getting at you know, you talked about charlottesville and good people on both sides and the demise of the republican party is a three legged stool. good people on both sides of the kkk rally is one of those legs. the idea that trump again said out loud don't believe your eyes, don't believe your ears. only believe me. that he channelled to his base this idea he was the only trusted source and the third being what jeremy is describing. that everything becomes

relative. for all the damage done by fox news, trump revelled in damaging fox news. talk about this sort of perfect storm now of anti-democratic forces pulling the republican party sort of away from even being participants in our democracy. >> so while i preach that a lot of what we've seen and experienced over the last five or six years rests on the shoulders of so-called leaders, elected officials who swore an oath to uphold the institution and to live by those terms in representing their people, in that three legged stool, what is the one constant in the three legged stool? the american people who prop the stool up. the american people as you cut one leg off come back and prop it up. cut another, come back and prop

it up. so find people on both sides. you think that's the moment that's definitional for a national party to have its president, its leader say that and then you expect senators to fall over each other getting to a bank of microphones to declare them safe. that's not what we are. but before they even could do that, it's propped up by the very people who support this man. you talk about going after these other aspects of trump. you know. don't believe them. just believe me. well, people do. they prop that up. they prop up the big lie. they prop up the narratives about hillary clinton and whoever or whatever else. it didn't matter. whatever fill in the blank name trump gives you, suddenly, they become the enemy of the state. that's propped up by people. so at the core of this idea of

this democracy that's held up by these pedestals, these legs here, you've got people actually sawing off the legs. and so the question and the challenge become for us and these moments is what do people want to do? and what do you think they're going to do and i think that's a lot of what you're seeing now where donald trump is at the point where he can tell people to wear a mask and what do they do? they boo him. and that's a very different space. and that's what comes from when you're having the people prop this up. at some point, they take over. >> well, and speaking of sawing the legs off the three legged stool that is trumpism, we have breaking news from the committee. the committee has issued subpoenas for six more individuals who they say had knowledge of or participated in to send false electors for the

ex-president who had lost to congress. folks include kelly ward. she reportedly spoke to donald trump and members of his staff about election certification issues in arizona. today's subpoenas also include doug masetrin, let's bring in garrett. what do you know? >> well, nicolle, these subpoenas really show what the committee i think wants to demonstrate is the breadth of the plan here to install these electors. they include two trump campaign officials who were involved in election day operations and who the committee says in their letters were then part immediately of going from election day operations into the so-called stop the steal movement. you mentioned doug in pennsylvania. kelly ward in arizona. there's another person subpoenaed who was involved in stop the steal rallies in arizona and the final one goes to a woman in michigan who

appears to have been only a witness to rudy giuliani's effort to get involved in alternate electors schemes there. so i think taken as a whole, you see what the committee's trying to do here. really reaching back in time to election day and kind of pointing out that the seeds of this insurrection and what where he saw here on january 6th were planted that day and then you sort of see in the text of these letters how they believe these folks out in the states were trying to get their set of ideas about stopping the steal, ways to get around certified elections in various states in front of the president and in front of the vice president before january 6th. >> so, garrett, you gave us a couple of things to unpack. let me read that paragraph you mentioned about miss cox as a witness to rudy giuliani and ask you about this in context of reporting over the weekend that giuliani is actually in talks to potentially cooperate.

so the committee writes this. you reportedly were a witness when giuliani pressured state lawmakers to disregard election results in michigan and when you said that certifying the election results would be a criminal act, we would like to better understand these and other statements and events that you witnessed or in which you participated and communications we believe you may have had with national, state, and local officials about the result of the 2020 election. of course, today's subpoenaed individuals join 14 who were subpoenaed last night and i wonder if you can sort of speak to how intensive this effort around the fake electors has been an how the potential cooperation of giuliani might influence the willingness to cooperate among all 20 of them. >> the previous subpoenas for other alternate electors, i don't think they were last night, i think they were a couple of weeks ago. >> last month. >> were the chair or the secretary. basically the top two alternate electors in each of the states

where those slates were put forward. we know there's been a pretty aggressive effort to get those folks in early and come talk. the inclusion of the giuliani information here is interesting because i think you can put way giuliani. our understanding is that he has engaged with the committee, at least in terms of talking about scheduling or talking about the possibility of coming in. lots of witnesses do that, including some like mark meadows, for example, or even steve bannon, i believe, at one point, also engaged with the committee and never showed up. so, the fact that those discussions are ongoing is something, but it doesn't get you all the way there. the other thing with giuliani is, given his role as, you know, personal attorney to donald trump, there's a lot that he might potentially try to shield behind attorney-client privilege. what's laid out in this subpoena for this witness in michigan today wouldn't fall under that category, right? this is not about conversations that giuliani had with the president at the time. the committee says they're

interested in conversations giuliani was having in the state of michigan with lawmakers in the state of michigan, so you see the ways in which the committee might be trying to go around giuliani, whether or not he decides to ultimately cooperate in any meaningful way or not. >> and garrett, it always jumps out at me when the committee makes clear they know about phone calls that have happened between donald trump and anyone else they've subpoenaed. let me read this from kelly ward's subpoena. in the days after the associated press and fox news declared that now president biden had won the presidential election in arizona, you reportedly sent text messages to an arizona election official in which you said, quote, we need you to stop the counting. asked the official to contact a lawyer representing the trump campaign and said, i know you don't want to be remembered as the guy who led the charge to certify a fraudulent election. you also apparently spoke with former president trump and members of his staff about election certification issues in

arizona. that's sourced to some news reporting. in addition, after the election, you sent out messages suggesting the november 2020 election had been stolen. you posted a video advancing unsubstantiated theories of voting interference along with a link to a donation page to benefit the arizona republican party. it's always revealed, i guess, more publicly in these subpoenas how much the committee already knows and understands about this effort. >> yeah, and when these letters come out, i sometimes go right to the footnotes to figure out what they know that i don't. >> me too, right. >> and where it's coming from. you mentioned, in this case, some great local news reporting was actually part of how they found out about some of kelli ward's activities behind the scenes. she is the state party chair in arizona, probably one of the most pro-trump state party chairs in the country, and she has been outspoken as anybody about what she believes was the

stolen election down there. ward is an active political figure, and by the way, you know, put a pin in this, because i think this is the kind of thing, whether you think it's crocodile tears or not, that you're going to hear a lot of pushback from other elected republicans on, that this is the kind of thing that they see as kind of like sort of out of bounds in the sense that here you have someone who is a public-facing political figure doing public-facing political things. those things in this case, trying to undermine the election results in her own state, but nevertheless, i expect kelli ward is someone we are more likely than not to hear from about her own views on the subpoena, i bet sooner rather than later. >> joyce, let me bring you in on this. we may hear from her, but the truth is that congress has subpoena power and they have subpoenaed kelli ward. >> congress has subpoena power to the extent that the justice department is willing to enforce it for them, but these folks are clearly properly subpoenaed. they don't have any sort of

executive privilege or attorney-client privilege that they can assert in this regard, and they should be fully enforceable just to the same extent that steve bannon has been with a contempt prosecution if they failed to comply. nicole, the really interesting thing about this group of subpoenas that comes out today is the january 6th committee has made it very clear that they're heading straight for the heart of the big lie. and they're doubling down on their belief that if they tell the american people the truth in these public hearings later this year, that they can convince just enough americans that the truth matters, that the truth is the antidote to trump, so this is really set up to be a showdown on the issue of whether voter fraud happened, whether it was a myth, and i think the evidence will be pretty stark in that regard, heading into the midterms. >> michael steele, your reaction to today's subpoenas. >> yeah, i think that frames the argument precisely.

the committee is laying out a very clear path to where it wants to go, and what i find very interesting, almost like a funnel, it is narrowing the range that a lot of these actors have to sort of avoid getting caught, avoid having to participate. you know, if you are, you know, meadows and you got the subpoena and you're like, well, i'm just not going to participate, i don't want to play, that's okay. we've got reams of papers that connect you in other ways. we may not even need your testimony. we just thought we'd ask pro forma, you know? so that's the problem a lot of these folks have, which joyce could very, very clearly lay out for them if they need that expert understanding. that just because you got a subpoena and you say -- you thumb your nose at it, doesn't mean that you're the only source of the evidence. that the committee's looking for. >> right. >> and that is -- at the end of the day, that guessing game,

what do they know? and who do they know it from? and how close a proximity does it reach donald trump or any of these other major players? that's what this committee has been able to do expertly and to joyce's point, it sets up the summer and the early fall for very ticklish, i think, spot for the gop relative to all of those actors. >> jeremy peters, michael steele, joyce vance, garrett haake, thank you all so much for being part of our coverage this hour. jeremy's new book "insurgency: how republicans lost their party and got everything they wanted" is out now. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a very short break. ne white ushoe" starts after a very short ushoe" starts after a very short break. now i'm taking on new projects on the regular. there are millions of ways to make the most of your land. learn more at deere.com we need to reduce plastic waste in the environment.

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we're willing to make practical result oriented steps that can advance our common security. we will not sacrifice basic principles, though. nations have a right to sovereignty and territorial integrity. they have the freedom to set their own course and choose with whom they will associate. but that still leaves plenty of de-escalation. that's the best way forward for all parties in our view. as long as there is hope of diplomatic resolution that prevents the use of force and avoids incredible human suffering that would follow, we will pursue it. >> hi there, everyone, it's 5:00 in the east. president joe biden today addressing the american people

and the world for the first time on the russian build-up of military forces on ukraine's border. reiterating the desire for de-escalation and for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. it comes as we're seeing signals from vladimir putin that he may be willing to step back from the brink. nbc news reports this. quotes, putin said tuesday that moscow had decided to partially withdraw some troops gathered near ukraine and said his country was ready for more talks with the west. his comments offering a glimmer of hope that a diplomatic solution to the standoff might still be possible. they came after the country's defense ministry announced that some troops were returning to their bases after completing military exercises. but the u.s., ukraine, and nato all cautioned not to read too much into putin's words. nato secretary stoltenberg said, there are grounds for cautious optimism and stressed, quote, we have not seen any sign of

de-escalation on the ground. and from ukraine's foreign affairs minister, quote, we in ukraine have a rule. we don't believe what we hear. we believe what we see. if a real withdrawal follows these statements, we will believe in the beginning of a real de-escalation. ultimately, no one knows putin's plans except putin, which is why the white house has, for months, been anticipating and preparing for what could come. new reporting in the "washington post," which nbc has now confirmed, details a white house tiger team that gamed out u.s. responses to a wide range of possible scenarios. the president of the united states addressing the evolving crisis in ukraine is where we start this hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. retired army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman is back, author of "new york times" best-selling book "here, right matters." also joining us, julia ioffe, founding partner of puck news, and jonathan lemire is here,

politico's white house bureau chief, host of msnbc's "way too early," also an msnbc contributor. colonel vindman, i start with you. two-part question for you. your reaction to the president's speech and your sense of what is actually happening on the ground. >> well, i was very glad to hear the president give public remarks on this topic. i think they were a long time coming. i think the american public deserves to understand that we're on the brink of a very, very serious scenario from unfolding with significant consequences to the u.s. public. within these remarks, i picked out a couple of moments that were of particular concern. the fact that there's likely still a scenario, even if it's not conventional, of a cyber scenario and that there are -- that would be significant repercussions. symmetric or asymmetric responses to that as well as the idea that if russia targets u.s. personnel in ukraine, they would be a swift and decisive response. i think that's particularly important, because there were

some ambiguity about u.s. personnel that remained. with regards to the situation in ukraine on the border between russia and ukraine, there's a saying that we have in the military. trust but verify. but with regards to russia, it's neither trust but certainly verify their actions. there are some hopeful signs, people are really kind of leaning into some of these really somewhat superficial remarks about the door of diplomacy being open and i think there's reason to potentially weigh those, but until russia starts to withdraw its forces, that's something that's probably going to occur over the next, you know, 48, 72, 96 hours. until they start withdrawing, then there's really nothing to justify hopeful thinking. one of the things i picked up by monitoring the russian speaking press is the chief of the national defense control center, basically the russian ministry of defense ops center, said they're going to start to withdraw and recall to bases western and southern military

district forces, not the central or eastern military district forces that traveled thousands of miles to get to their locations. the forces that are much easier to kind of deploy back to bases and recall if need be. so, i'm really looking to see central and military district, eastern military district forces withdraw back to their bases as kind of a substantial indicator that we are, you know, over the hump for a major military confrontation. >> colonel vindman, in your prior government post, it would have fallen to you to have worked on remarks from an american president at a moment of crisis like this. i want to play some of this president's speech. and this is where he's speaking to the russian people. let's watch. we'll talk about it on the other side. >> to the citizens of russia, you are not our enemy. and i do not believe you want a bloody, destructive war against ukraine, a country and a people with whom you share such deep ties of family, history and

culture. 77 years ago, our people fought and sacrificed side-by-side to end the worst war in history. world war ii was a war of necessity, but if russia attacks ukraine, it would be a war of choice or a war without cause or reason. >> so, it made me want to ask you, what is public sentiment on the ground in russia toward putin's aggressive moves on the border of ukraine? >> sure. first, i think it's important to note that the president hit all the right notes with his remarks there. he talked about our alliance through world war ii and about the war of need, the war to, you know, against evil, against naziism and fascism. and this would be a war of choice. russia claims it does not fight wars of choice. it fights out of necessity and the president's pushing back on that.

this would not be that kind of war. and with regards to public sentiment, there's definitely a divergence of opinion. there are plenty of elites, certainly putin's inner circle, that believe in a kind of russian exceptionalism where others don't exist. there's greater russia and lesser russia. that's what they refer to ukraine as, lesser russia. and in that kind of thinking, there is no -- you don't distinguish between the populations, they're basically the same thing as russians. in reality, i think there's a wider acceptance, a growing acceptance of the fact that ukraine is different. there's 30 years of history between now and the end of the cold war, the end of the soviet union, and people have come to recognize sovereign independent states out of the republic so it hasn't filtered all the way up to the elites, but it's getting there, and polling suggests that this is not -- this is not going to be a popular war with the russian people. >> julia, you have had some healthy skepticism that putin

would be persuaded against invasion. what are your thoughts today and your reaction to president biden's speech? >> well, i think what president biden said about the russian people not being our enemy is the right message. the question is, are the russian people going to hear it? is it going to be shown on kremlin tv? is it going to be on independent media sites that have been shut down or are largely inaccessible because they're blocked inside russia? so, i feel like that message was mostly for the american people. also, as to the troop withdrawal, you know, i could withdraw 10,000 troops and say, i reduced troops and instead of 130,000, we'll just have 120,000 troops surrounding ukraine, but it's still technically a de-escalation, drawdown. my personal feeling on this is

that the reason putin announced this today was because last week, the u.s. government leaked that he might attack wednesday or that -- and jake sullivan, the national security advisor, said very openly that, you know, the attack on ukraine could happen any day now. and so, you know, if everybody's expecting war on wednesday, putin comes out on tuesday and says, no, i'm declaring peace. whether or not that's a fakeout, that gives him cover and some time to, i don't know, maybe invade down the road or buy more time for diplomatic talks, we don't know yet, but i agree with colonel vindman that, you know, we should really wait before declaring victory on this one. >> yeah, i mean, jonathan lemire, that was some great reporting in "the new york times" over the weekend about this very rapid and fulsome effort to declassify information almost as soon as it is collected and analyzed to

keeping putin on his heels maybe isn't the right way to describe it. it's not clear that he ends up on his heels very often, but to make public everything that we know in the spirit of what julia's describing, if we think he might go to war on wednesday, we say, prepare for war on wednesday, and at least buy ourselves and our allies some time. what is your sense of the white house using all the levers of power at their disposal to stave off war? >> the administration officials i have talked to the last couple days say this is very deliberate. let's remember, of course, putin, ex-kgb, ex-intelligence officer. they think it would rattle him to be putting out in almost realtime the intelligence the u.s. and its allies are collecting. they know how important that is to putin. it started a few weeks ago. the uk put forth information that moscow had a plan to install a puppet regime in kyiv if they were to indeed go in, and now we've heard from jake sullivan and others stateside, doing the same, where they put out information as soon as they get it in an effort to rattle

moscow and maybe get putin to rethink. but officials i've talked to in the last day or so, in the last few hours, they're not quite sure what to make of this, the current standing in russia along the border. yes, of course, they're heartened to hear putin say that he would still have a door open for diplomacy, and that the russians are saying that they will pull back some troops but let's be clear. it's the russians saying this and we should inject significant skepticism into that. they have been less than honest before about ukraine and in syria where they flatout lied so they're taking it with a grain of salt and also ones pledged to leave are ones that weren't stationed far from the ukrainian border to begin with. a more hopeful sign will be if the troops that are stationed across the country, even 11 time zones away, if they start moving and head home, that's a sign, perhaps, of more real de-escalation and they're also watching these military exercises in belarus because

they feel like belarus would be where a potential invasion would be launched from. so, another 24 hours going by without violence, that's a good 24 hours, as one white house aide put it to me, but they feel like they are far from out of woods rights now, which is why the president wanted to address the nation today. >> colonel vindman, there's some reporting in the "washington post" that i suspect, again, if you were in government, you would be intimately involved in. they write this. behind the scenes is the tiger team's private planning and strategizing, which has not been previously reported to ensure that not just the white house but all the agencies that would need to respond to an outbreak of hostilities are primed and ready to go. the playbook itself goes far beyond battlefield scenarios, looking at questions like how to address ukrainian refugees who might stream into poland and romania, how to secure the u.s. embassy in kyiv, exactly what sort of sanctions to impose on moscow and how to fight back against a sophisticated cyberattack. there were some reports today that there were -- there was

evidence of some banks being attacked and the defense ministry. what is your sense of what these tiger teams look like, having participated in exercises like this? >> sure. so, tiger team is a concept i'm very familiar with. it's a rapid kind of response team pulled together probably representing every single kind of relative -- relevant branch of government. it's going to be state department. it's going to be treasury, the intelligence community, defense, anybody that has something to contribute would be involved in this effort. and the reason that they have to do this is because in fact, russia's objectives with regards to ukraine haven't changed. the only thing that's changed and the only thing that may drive a -- us to avert this particular confrontation is that the opportunities have closed off. all the things that putin typically does with regards to probing and testing to figure out where the vulnerabilities are, those have, in a lot of

ways, proven false with regards to kind of this major -- potentially. this is still too early to say, but with this major military offensive, but in terms of hybrid warfare, cyberattacks, maybe limited military aims with just small acquisitions of territory, those things are still on the table and it's the responsibility of good government and a good management to conduct all these contingency plans. this is something that i think a lot of people have written about. i certainly have been deeply concerned about displaced persons and refugees and cyberattacks, and it's very good sign that these activities are going on and that they're being thought through in detail, covering the worst case scenarios, covering the range of possibilities to help the government respond when things start to infold. >> julia, i want to read to you something senator chris murphy tweeted and it sort of gets at how these conversations take place, as though putin holds all the cards. he tweeted this.

it's maddening watching putin hold these cards. it feels like he's in charge, holding us all hostage, but not really. he's operating from a position of severe weakness, having failed to coax ukraine back into his orbit, a potentially disastrous invasion is his last resort. do you agree with that? >> yes and no. i think, you know, he's also weakening his position vis-a-vis ukraine every day that he does this. i talked to a friend in moscow who said, you know, if ukraine didn't have a national organizing idea before 2014, it does now, and putin is kind of the main builder of national -- of ukrainian national identity. even though he wants to bring it back into the russian fold, at least in terms of influence. i do think, you know, all of this -- we're all waiting for putin to decide whether he's going to invade or not, but i do want to give the biden administration props for what they've done with their pretty

weak hand. you know, what do you do with a guy who doesn't care if his population doesn't want to go to war? who doesn't care if it will impoverish them? and is willing to risk a bloody war of attrition and occupation? what do you do with a guy who sees sanctions not as deterrent but basically as overhead, as the cost of doing geopolitical business. so they've -- back to our earlier point. they've developed this very clever kind of method of informational warfare, of taking putin's main trick away from him, which is the unpredictability, the constantly, you know, getting the west on its back foot, surprising us, sending us into a tizzy. now it seems like the white house, and in some cases london and brussels are doing the same thing, and what you saw today, i think, with putin announcing this drawdown and that he wants to negotiate is, i think, him trying to wrest back control of the narrative, wrest back some

of the unpredictability so he has a monopoly on that. i would say yes and no to your original question. >> jonathan lemire, i want to read some more reporting to you about what julia's getting at. the white house approach and strategy here. david ignatius writes this. putin seems convinced that this ever intensifying war of nerves is helping russia but white house officials believe this tactic might be backfiring in two ways. some russian officials, uncertain of putin's end game are questioning his brinksmanship and western nations unsettled by russian bullies are rallying around a nato alliance that seemed depleted just two years ago. there were concerns, i think, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, when we had these conversations, that the alliance was if not falling apart, a little bit like herding cats. that certainly does not seem to be the case now. talk about the white house sort of their feeling about the cohesion of the nato alliance.

>> yeah, the west wing at the highest levels is really heartened by where they feel nato is today. we, of course, saw four years from donald trump threatened to pull it apart. at one moment, i was there in brussels where he threatened to storm out and pull united states out of that alliance. and now, you know, president biden has had to reassure some skeptical members that they can count on the united states again and there is a sense in the administration that putin's saber rattling has unnerved europe to the point where they have realized they need each other again. they need nato. and that they are tighter now than they were, and even germany had been sort of the holdout to the frustration of some in biden's world, and -- but yet, in the last week or so, with the new chancellor visiting washington and now in moscow, they feel like he -- germany is on board as well, despite, obviously, the energy commitment they have with russia. so, they are hopeful of this.

they feel like putin may have backfired here, that he read the afghanistan withdrawal last summer and drew the wrong conclusion, that he thought that was a sign of american weakness, when really, that was simply president biden honoring a campaign commitment, one he had for a decade where he felt like it was time for the u.s. to come home, and certainly the withdrawal itself, especially in those early days, would have gone better, administration officials concede, but that wasn't a sign of american reluctance to be strong across the globe, and putin may have misread that is what the administration officials feel. and they think that the nato allies now are tighter than ever, even as though, of course, it's open question whether ukraine itself will ever gain membership, and that is putin's primary concern. he can't let that happen. >> tired army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, julia ioffe and jonathan lemire, thank you so much for starting us off. when we come back, the house oversight committee is investigating how 15 boxes of white house documents, some

clearly marked classified and top secret, ended up at the disgraced ex-president's club in florida. congressman gerry connolly, a top democrat on that committee, will be our guest after a quick break. plus, the republican party's biggest hawks, people like lindsey graham, seem to know how to stand up to strong men and autocrats around the world, just not that guy from mar-a-lago who leads their party. and an outrageous story from colorado where a disgraced county elections clerk accused of breaching the security of voting machines there in her quest to prove the big lie, well, she now wants to oversee elections in her state, statewide. she's just one of a growing number of election deniers who want to run the next one. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. stay with us. e" continues after a quick break. after a quick break. stay with us ♪ i see them bloom for me and you ♪

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the house oversight committee has asked the national archives for more information by this friday on the disgraced ex-president's removal and possible destruction of official presidential records. to determine the extent and impact of what it says appears to be serious violations of the presidential records act. that law makes it illegal, a crime to create any action that prevents the preservation of the records by the national archives which has requested a separate doj investigation into this matter and according to the committee, it is all punishable by up to three years in prison. from the "new york times," luke broadwater's reporting on this, trump had been loathe to return the materials despite repeated

efforts by the national archives to obtain them and at one point the agency threatened to send a letter to congress or the justice department if he continued to withhold the boxes. quote, if former president trump was intentionally destroying records or hiding records frrt national archives where they are legally required to be kept, he must be held accountable, said representative carolyn maloney, the chairwoman of the oversight panel. joining us now is congressman gerry connolly of virginia, a member of the house oversight and reform committee as well as the foreign affairs committee. congressman, there's a bluntness that i think we have to start with. of course donald trump destroyed records, reviewed them as his own, he ripped them, he chewed them up, so my question is, is this an effort to build the case, to make it beyond dispute? is it because 1/6 is so deadly serious? tell me what makes this different from a practice that he didn't try all that hard to hide.

>> yeah, you know, there's a pattern with donald trump where people kind of pull their punches. go back to robert mueller. >> right. >> he documented 11 cases of obstruction of justice but withheld indicting donald trump under the thin guidance of an old memo in the department of justice that said, you can't indict a sitting president, even when he commits a crime. and nothing happened. nothing has happened so far with the manhattan d.a.'s investigation of donald trump and his business practicing. nothing yet has happened in georgia in the investigation about whether trump criminally tried to overturn election results and falsify results in his favor. nothing has yet happened in the state of new york with respect to donald trump's business practices, even though his own accounting firm has now disavowed ten years of his financial records as not being reliable. so here we are with a prima

facie set of evidence that donald trump basically, you know, showed his thumb and his nose to the presidential records act, which is a matter of law, and it is a crime to knowingly violate that law and it is pretty clear from the evidence we have already that he did just that. he violated that law with impunity. he hid records. he withheld records. he destroyed records. and he circumvented the phone logs in the white house when he was making phone calls using other cell phones including secret service to avoid having a logged presidential phone call. >> you've opened the door. nothing ever happens is the bottom line, i guess, for the last five years. he grabs women between the legs, nothing happens. republicans fall into line. he sees good people on both

sides at a kkk rally. nothing happens. republicans fall into line. he refuses to accept the results of what is described by lifetime republican chris krebs as the most secure election in american history. nothing happens. what can you do as one party when the other is complicit in all of his bad deeds? >> well, you know, in this case, it's our system of justice, so it is, you know, attorneys general. it is district attorneys. it is the attorney general of the united states to hold to account anybody, anybody who violates the law. we certainly re-established that principle, no one's above the law during richard nixon, when, by the way, the presidential records act was finally passed into law to prevent a president from destroying records like nixon contemplated destroying the white house tapes. we made that a criminal offense. so here we are with a president

who is either withholding documents required to be given to the archivists by law or destroying them. and that is a criminal act and it ought to be prosecuted as such, even if it's donald trump. >> you brought in to the conversation merrick garland. there's a lot of exasperation that it doesn't appear merrick garland's investigation into january 6th includes he who incited january 6th. you talked about robert mueller's detailed volume two of his report, the obstruction report details. as you said, more than half a dozen criminal acts of obstruction of justice, robert mueller said if i could say laws hadn't been broken, i would, clearly meaning laws were broken. there's no evidence, though, that anyone is investigating donald trump. >> yeah. there have been a lot of investigations, and there's no action.

and i believe the time has come for legal action, both in the civil realm and in the criminal realm. whether it's his business practices, whether it's his assaults on women, whether it's behavior during the insurrection and during his white house years, whether it's the presidential records act. he needs to be held to account. that principle is sacred. if this is allowed, this behavior is allowed to go unaddressed with impunity, what is to stop any future president from basically asserting the law is what i say it is, and i am not accountable or subject to any penalties pursuant to the law since i say what the law is, and there are no penalties for me. it can't be illegal, by definition, if the president does it. richard nixon asserted that principle, and he paid a very heavy price and learned a lesson

that i had hoped would be a perpetual lesson in the presidency. unfortunately, we're revisiting that issue. what is the legal jeopardy of a president who violates the law? >> the 1/6 committee has seemingly gone farther than many others in referring or at least being interested in referring, making a criminal referral to merrick garland should they uncover evidence of criminality on donald trump's part. does the house oversight committee have the ability, or are you in talks to refer trump to doj on the records, or does that all lie and rest with the national archives? >> our committee clearly investigating any matter has the option of referring it criminally to the department of justice for further review and action. so, there's nothing to stop our committee from doing that on this or any other matter.

we obviously need to get at the facts to lay out the case for a willful violation of the law, but i do think that the committee's request for further information and documentation as put forward by our chairperson, carolyn maloney, certainly underscores the gravity of this matter and the seriousness of the committee in looking at it, which you asked earlier, when are there going to be investigations? our committee is taking that very seriously, and of course, the january 6th commission is looking at the whole issue of the insurrection and what preceded it and what followed it, and i think that could be a blockbuster of a report that could do further damage to donald trump in terms of his behavior before, during, and after that violent insurrection, which he incited. >> congressman, we always

appreciate your candor. thank you for spending time with us today and having this conversation. we're grateful. when we come back, tough talking republicans like lindsey graham act like they know how to deal with autocrats like vladimir putin, which makes his complete and utter refusal to confront the disgraced ex-president, you know, the one who wanted to overturn an election he clearly lost, all the more hypocritical. that reporting after a quick break. ocritical. that reporting after a quick that reporting after a quick break.after just 2 doses. skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fever, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or coughs or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. ♪nothing is everything♪ talk to your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save.

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they're telling us the invasion is imminent, but they're not telling putin with clarity what happens if you invade. he should be punished now. what i can't get over is that the world is allowing him to do all this without consequence. the guy took the crimea in 2014. he's got 100,000 troops amassed on the ukrainian border, and he's paying no price at all. we're talking way too much, and we're doing too little. >> so, that, of course, was lindsey graham appearing on abc's "this week on sunday" playing his best version of an outraged lindsey graham, feigning to be outraged by the biden administration's response to the crisis in ukraine. so while graham was clearly upset there about an autocrat trying to usurp another country, he seemed to fall silent when the conversation changed to another would-be wannabe autocrat. when george stephanopoulos changed the subject to the twice

impeached disgraced ex-president, graham had nothing but praise for trump, saying he had a great chance of being president again in 2024. graham's paradox brings up a major theme in today's republican party. the inability and the unwillingness to call out their party's leader for actions that certainly border on anti-democratic. and autocratic. as william writes for the bulwark, quote, trump doesn't have putin's record of jailing political opponents, eliminating dissidents and journalists or invading countries but he's often emulated foreign autocrats. in short, graham understood that trump thought like an autocrat. i just attempted to seize and hold power like an autocrat and could never be talked out of his autocratic mindset but instead of confronting the tyrant, graham excused him. in fact, graham tried to protect trump's path back to power. let's bring into our conversation charlie sykes, the editor at large of the bulwark, also an msnbc contributor and basil smikle, democratic strategist and the director of

the public policy program at hunter college. it is a sort of slow move to saying out loud what the republican party is, but in terms of its numbers, it may be the largest anti-democratic or hostile to democratic norm movement the world over, charlie, and i wonder why these men, and they're mostly men, think they can stand on the world stage and criticize the world's most heinous autocrats by saying nothing about the autocratic impulses of donald trump. >> well, this is what i loved about will's article. he's my newest colleague at the bulwark and i think he pointed out this paradox, that these guys are so tough when it comes to how we need too deal with autocrats like vladimir putin, but when they're faced with an autocrat in their own party who has made it absolutely clear that he might stage another coup, lindsey graham is the exact opposite. i mean, can you come up with

somebody who is more like neville chamberlain when it comes to appeasement than lindsey graham. there is this weird cognitive dissonance between all the puff guy posturing rhetoric when it comes to russia and yet when it comes to donald trump, who, you know, poses this, i think, clear and present danger to our constitutional republic, you're not going to see any sort of pushback, no sort of, we need to stand strong, we need to make him pay a price, we need to hold him accountable. none of that. it's a fascinating paradox, and you see it really on display in the person of lindsey graham once again. >> i mean, charlie, i just want to press on this because if if we're being specific, donald trump wanted to do all those things. he wanted to use the justice department to prosecute hillary clinton. he succeeded in using the justice department to get bill

barr to pardon his friends and cronies and allies so it's not theoretical. it happened. if you look at who would be part of a comeback tour, it is the likes of the pardoned mike flynn who are closest to him now. >> that's right, and imagine what trump 2.0 would be, the revenge tour. once donald trump actually learns how to use the levers of power, the question is, will there be checks and balances, and i thought the comment of your previous guest was very interesting where he was talking about watergate and the lesson that we thought that we had learned, that the president was not above the law, the president would be held accountable, but you know, just think about it, that there were -- there were, i think, 40 nixon administration officials who were indicted and/or imprisoned as a result of watergate. think of all of the criminal charges, all of the people who were held responsible. a president who was forced to resign, an attorney general who went to prison, a white house council who went to prison, and then in contrast that to what we

have right now where there are no consequences, no legal consequences whatsoever for what donald trump did, what he attempted to do, all the lies that he has told, and there's really very little prospect that there will be going forward so there's a rather dramatic contrast between what we thought this country stood for in terms of the rule of law and the president and where we are right now. >> you know, any student of watergate and anyone who tries to understand why these times are so different, basil, always lands on, i think, two structural changes. and i think giraldo riviera said, if you were around during watergate, nixon wouldn't have had to resign. i don't know if they were joking or serious or they said out loud

what we all suspect, but the apparatus of disinformation and propaganda in a media-run state cannot be understated in terms of what used to sort of precipitate the collapse of any political leader in the republican party, used to be that the facts would get through, even to the republican voters. doesn't happen anymore. i mean, fox just walls off the truth from its millions of viewers. and the other is the cowardice of the gop themselves. mitch mcconnell wanted donald trump to have time to deal with his feelings, i think, after losing in november. kevin mccarthy did a full, you know, pilgrimage to mar-a-lago after 1/6. talk about the dangers to democracy of those two dynamics, the propaganda arm and the complicity of republican leaders who know better. >> i'll deal with that second point first. you know, it's interesting because there have been some reports about whether or not the party, the gop is pulling away from donald trump a little bit

after the youngkin win in virginia, there was conversation about whether or not republicans could align themselves with trump as opposed to embracing donald trump, but when you see lindsey graham, you realize that nothing much really has changed. and you know, when i think about it, i think about 2016, when on the debate stage throughout that entire campaign, donald trump exhibited this unscrupulous ambition mixed with toxic masculinity. and he essentially ended careers for mainstream republicans, folks that wanted to be a little bit more in the middle. and the concern, therefore, is whether or not, you know, republicans today who are thinking that they want to at least espouse some kind of rational thought, some kind of defense of democracy, will end up losing their careers because this man, whether directly or

indirectly, will figure -- this man, being donald trump -- will figure out a way to undermine them and undercut them at every turn. the reality is that they seem to be too scared, too afraid, too concerned about their own careers to stand up for anything greater than themselves. and that is the absolute antithesis of leadership. and then i would also go back to the other point that, you know, we have this apparatus that's true, whether we have a legal apparatus, we have a electoral apparatus, we have institutions that are supposed to be able to defend the minority, the small "m" minority in this country but also defend our right to take part in our society for our civic participation, defend our civic participation. and as i was saying the other day, it seems like what the republicans are trying to do and have been somewhat successful

at, unfortunately, is removing people from the democratic process that they don't agree with. democrats on occasion will try to go to the middle. republicans will just take out the middle and the left and be left with all that they care about and only what they like. and that is the extraordinarily dangerous place for this country to be in, but again, there's nobody on that -- there are very few people on that side, if any, really, standing up for anything different. so, they are finding ways to make sure that that apparatus continues to work for their interests. >> charlie and basil are sticking around through a break. when we come back, there is a growing trend across this country of followers of the disgraced ex-president's big lie who want to be in charge of running future elections. the next ones, none maybe as outrageous as the one we'll tell you about. s, none maybe as outrageous as the one we'll tell you about.

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it sounds like a story out of the onion, sadly it is true. supporters of the ex-president's big lie about election fraud are tripping over one another to run for offices that oversee our elections. one of them is running despite being actively under investigation for election tampering. tina peters is running to be colorado's secretary of state, amid a grand jury investigation into election tampering and

misconduct. peters is the clerk from mesa county, stripped of her powers to oversee elections there because of her actions which are under investigation. in may last year, peters and two other people entered a secure area of a warehouse in mesa county where crucial election information was stored. they copied hard drives and election management software from voting millenials. peters is being investigated in the security breach involving elections equipment in may. you can't make it up. the people investigated for spreading lies and sewing distrust of our democracy are running to run the elections they so distrust about. >> that's absolutely right. i mean, if you think about it, there are 27 secretaries of state up for election this year, 14 republicans and 13 democrats,

and when we talked earlier about the apparatus, this is the apparatus and this is one of the most important parts of our system. consider that in wisconsin, the gop is talking about dissolving the bipartisan election commission there. so these folks that are running on the right seem intent upon again dismantling all of the pillars of our system that have encouraged and opened the door for so many people to keep folks like me to be part of the process. this is more of the shameful exercise of our democratic back sloging. >> charlie, you pay attention to the voter suppression laws which usher in measures, disguised as voter integrity measures. there is no fraud, it is not

actually that, but maybe we don't pay enough attention to local election races, trump supporters are sort of rushing in to fill in a lot of the cracks. do you detect at least in wisconsin that there's as robust an effort on the truthy side, the democratic side? >> not so far. the story out of colorado reminds us that a clown with a flamethrower still has a flamethrower. these folks are very serious about this. they are making a concerted effort to take offices that will determine how votes are counted. you have to be concerned how votes are cast, but i am more concerned about people that come in and be prepared to nullify an election. he mentioned wisconsin, where republicans want to dismantle the nonpartisan elections commission. believe it or not, that's the moderate republican position. the trumpy republican position,

pushed by people like mike lindell, michael flynn and trump himself is that wisconsin revoke its ten electoral votes that were cast for joe biden. there's a candidate for governor today who is speaking at the state capital with other legislators saying that wisconsin should actually try to decertify its election, that's unconstitutional, illegal. that is one of the go to position litmus tests, and donald trump is on the phone with these folks on a regular basis and they turned on the republican establishment that merely wants to dismantle the nonpartisan elections commission, so the window continues to move toward the crazy, the reckless and irresponsible, and again, you can roll your eyes how ridiculous it is, but these folks are quite serious and they're quite capable of overturning elections and

nullifying legitimate legal fair, free votes that are cast in the next election. >> one of the focuses of the 1-6 committee is this seven state effort to send phony electors, six more were subpoenaed today. it seems like there is sort of a proverbial knife brought to the gun fight on the side of truth and democracy. what other than this legal and congressional scrutiny can be done to keep folks from taking over sort of the steering wheel of our elections? >> i tell you, having been an election tore, it scarce me this is being done. i remember the phone calls, the hate mail i got urging me to change my position or step down or what have you. the concern i have is that

people's lives are at stake. folks will be threatened. the fear is that they will not want to participate in democracy because they don't want to step up and get involved for fear of their lives and their families. one of the things i would urge democrats to do is go out there and organize which is something that we say and kind of talk around, but the truth is there are so many venues that we need to be in, whether it is at the school board or at the board of elections, we have to be there and we have to protect the folks. >> more important now than ever. thank you so much for spending time with us today. quick break for us. we will be right back. quicks quicks we will be right back. your dell technologies advisor can help you find the right tech solutions.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we are so grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts now. >> hi, welcome to "the beat." we begin with breaking news. the january 6th committee subpoenaed six people into the trump campaign fraudulent elector plot, coordinated strategy to reclaim their authority by sending an alternate state of electors. you may have heard that from some people explaining what they were up to. fraudulent and fake is another. whether it