recommendations, people we should be hearing from. we do read and check what the folks recommend. "the reidout" with joy reid starts right now. hi, joy. >> hi, ari. isn't it amazing that the january 6th news, any other time would be both of our blocks and how it's just been overwhelmed by world events. just mind blowing. any way, have a great evening. cheers. good evening. we begin tonight with the humanitarian catastrophe in ukraine. where the numbers of civilian deaths and refugees are rising, with more than a million ukrainians fleeing russian military violence through check points and by train. take a look at this drone footage, showing the devastation in a residential area near kyiv. about 90% of the russian troops that were on ukraine's border are now fighting inside the country. the worst of russia's shelling continues to hit kharkiv, where

ukrainian soldiers and civilians are being attacked with a barrage of air strikes. russian forces have seized kherson, a key access point to the black sea in southern ukraine. it is the first major city to fall, as putin aims to take control of all of ukraine. another round of talks between russia and ukraine has been -- has ended with no cease-fire. but the country agreed to create safe corridors for civilians. as emmanuel macron warns the worst is yet to con. the french president again asked putin to halt his attacks, but said putin won't do it. scenes from kyiv today include president zelenskyy holding a news conference where he warned of putin's largest plans, if he were to take ukraine. you can hear him here speaking to reporters in ukrainian, which we have translated into english in a voiceover. >> translator: if we don't exist any more, god forbid. remember our meeting.

next it will be latvia, lithuania, estonia, moldova, georgia, poland. they will then be walking until the berlin wall. >> president zelenskyy switched to russian, to directly challenge putin to sit down with him for talks. >> translator: what do you want from us? go away from our land. you don't want to leave now? sit down with me at the negotiation table. i'm available. sit with me, but not at 30 meterses like you do others. i'm your neighbor. you don't need to keep me at 30-meter distance. >> he went on to say, again, directly to putin, i don't bite. i'm a normal man. sit down with me. let's talk. what are you afraid of? i'm joined now by cal perry in lviv. and anchor ali velshi in budapest, hungary. give us a sense of how fierce

and broad this fighting is across ukraine. >> reporter: the fighting is fierce, and it's terrifying. we're starting to hear from some of the political heads who are in charge of these regions in the north and far south. let's just toss that map up. as i think about this here on the ground, it's like russia has opened up a two front north. there's this area in the north, there are at least five towns that have been under heavy bombardment for more than 24 hours where civilians have been unable to free or move. there is no power, water or heat. so you have civilians trapped where there is heavy fighting but the conditions are becoming brutal. in the south, you have this move by the russians to push out from crimea, to connect a land bridge clearly from that city of kherson, the first city to fall, to mariupol, which we are also hearing the fighting is heavy. it seems as though there's a bit

of reality, setting in on the ground here. we crossed that horrible milestone of 1 million refugees. but that first city to fall, i think really is hitting hard here on the ground, where people are coming to this realization that while we have heard so much reporting how the russians are getting bogged down, how that convoy outside kyiv is stalled, that really there is still an advancement, and there's been this shift in tactics, joy, that everybody feared would happen. the russians are now indiscriminately shelling these cities. that is killing civilians. whether or not they're targeting civilians directly, and we heard that from the ukrainian government, there are just indiscriminately shelling these areas. you mentioned that humanitarian corridor. we understand the discussions are laying out a framework for future discussions. but ukrainian officials tell you that there is no trust the russians will allow these humanitarian corridors.

they say what is the point if these cities are being helded as the negotiations happen, joy. >> yeah, wow. it is tragic and frightening. let me bring you in, ali velshi. the question for people in ukraine, stay and fight or try to flee. you know, there are people who are doing both. a lot of the men there are not leaving and they want to stay and fight. but there are people trying to get out. a million refugees already and counting. you're near the budapest border. what are you seeing there? >> reporter: well, more than 10% of those people who have left ukraine have come here to hungary. there are a few buckets of people. some come to budapest because it's a major center. there are citizens of other countries who have been studying or working in ukraine. they come here to be repatriated to their countries. in some cases they have nowhere to go.

we have another train coming in, there have been several of these trains daily. we're expecting 200 to300 refugees on that. it's a quiet station, but thousands of people have been here through the last few case. the police said yes, there is a train coming in now, that's what they are expecting. people are having trouble getting onto those planes. i spoke to a man in eastern ukraine. he was describing the stories we've been hearing that not everybody is getting the same chance to get out, particularly if you are white, he confirmed for me. listen to what he told me. [ inaudible ] >> did they tell you that because you're black? >> no, they didn't tell me that. >> but you got that information, that black people that are not ukrainian cannot get out?

>> not easy to cross. [ inaudible ] >> reporter: he am his friends are part of that group of people who do not have a plan to move forward. what you have here is embassy officials, people from other countries, food aid, and there are civilians, hungarian civilians who are here organizing accommodations, short term or long-term for people. they're organizing transportation for people. as you know, the european union has discussed and is hoping to implement a man that gives temporary residency to those people coming out here, allowing them to live and work outside of russia. possibly for a few years. so a lot of developments here in hungary. again, joy, we talked about this. but one of the issues is this is a country that does struggle with other people and

immigrants. it has a right wing government. a number of people pointed out that these are civilians helping and not representing the government. but civilians in ukraine would like to help these people who are struggling. >> cal, yesterday we talked about the fact that the 5 million refugees who came out of syria literally changed europe. right wing governments sprung up all across europe. hungary has one, brexit really you can trace to the idea that you had all of these muslim people that are having to leave syria, which is also a russian aided barbaric sort of outcome. and i'm wondering where people are going and who is receiving these various people who are leaving ukraine? i'm assuming if they're ukrainian, they're getting visas, being told you can stay for three years. but what if they're african or something other than white

ukrainians, where are they going? >> reporter: just on basic accommodation and transportation basis, the civilians here have a database of hungarians who will help people out. they said we have ran into problems when people show up and they were black. it wasn't as easy to figure out. they had to sift through their list. there were people who would accept them, but that is an actual challenge. there are a number of countries that set up emba sis. the indians and moroccans are here arranging buses to take them to the embassy to ship them back home. there are a lot of indian students in ukraine. but other people come here who do not have that option. they do not have official sanction and they don't have those options and they are stuck. you're right to point out what you did. hungary did not have a great experience with those syrian refugees when they came in. it was some of the harshest pictures that we had seen. that is an evolving story here, what will happen to the more than -- the hundreds of

thousands of people still coming here from ukraine. they're not all the same. >> yeah. >> two of the best there are. cal perry and ali velshi, thank you both very much. i'm joined now by retired army major john spencer with the madison policy forum. i have so many questions. i'm going to try to get through them all in this short time. but i want to start with that refugee crisis. this is a complicated situation, but part is this huge outflow of people who are ukrainian and non-ukrainian, who were studying in ukraine out in these neighboring countries. how does that complicate the neighboring country's attitude to what's happening in ukraine and the logistics of what they have to do? >> look, i'm a human, so i want all those civilians in the most protected place as they can be sent to. this war is going to be really

bad because of the humanitarian crisis we know is happening and it will get ten times worse. so those refugees are going to need assistance and the neighboring countries are going to have to take those in and it will cause a lot of problems. it's awful, joy. >> yeah. and let's now talk about what's going on inside of ukraine. that map that we put up earlier, it showed a lot of that yellow color, where the russians are advancing. i see kyiv right there, very, very close to the pink where you're seeing the russians moving in and occupying space. what do you make of the fact that the president is remaining in ukraine? he's very close to where those troops are advancing. he's apparently determined to remain in kyiv regardless. is that wise at this stage? >> absolutely. he's going to go down in history as one of the great leaders.

if he would have fled or if he flees, it's lost. war is more than just military force, it's about the will of the people. he is everything. he is why they have resistance so strongly. he's going to go down as a churchill, a washington. that is such an amazing leader. it's critical he stay safe, but he stays in the country. and he's doing that. those messages, that's why they have fought so hard. >> yeah. indeed. he is already legend. let's talk about what ukraine can do. russia has like 90% of its forces it had arrayed outside that country inside the country now. that map looks like they have enough to go in to destroy and kill a lot of people, but not necessarily enough to hold a country of 44 million people. so it's a two-part question. number one, what do you make of their strategy so far? they do seem to be stalling. the ukrainians are bragging about having brought down not a small number of their aircraft, they're saying they downed 29

russian aircraft, 27 helicopters. what can the ukrainians do at this point about that long tank convoy that's right outside kyiv? what can they do at this point militarily to fight back? and do you think the russians have enough troops in that country to really hold it? >> yeah, that's a great question. first off, the ukrainians need to keep doing what they're doing. the russians don't control nothing. maybe they think they do. but that's not the way this is working out for them at all. so they have to keep hitting the russian hordes wherever in any way they can. that stalled target or that stalled convoy is a great target. and they have to be safe about it, right? so this is their ability to continue to resist, and the more time russia can't achieve what it wants to do, which is take kyiv. this is all about an urban objective, a strategic objective, that he wants to take kyiv and is still a russian

friendly government. so the more the ukrainians do, the more they can stop that. every day that goes by, when ukraine doesn't lose, it's winning. they're running out of time, they're running out of food, water, gas, political support in his own country. what can they do more? they need to make sure that russia hits a wall of concrete. our president said they hit a wall of strength in the ukrainian people, and they did. i'm an urban warfare specialist. having done my own urban combat. the reason they're shelling like that is because they're scared. nobody wants to enter the hell of urban combat. this is about information war. that's what -- russians have to believe that they're entering hell, and the ukrainians have to believe, which i think they should. they are not as disadvantaged as everybody thinks they should. the urban train is the great equalizer. they can put up barriers and turn it into weeks and months for them to possibly take.

so to answer the first question, russia didn't bring what it needs to take those major urban areas. >> let me ask you this, as this is the train coming into budapest with the people who are leaving ukraine, getting to safety in hungary. that is what you're seeing on the screen right now. so on this question of insurgency, the fact that they didn't bring enough to hold that country. first of all, they're creating no kind of good will. so there will be an insurgency. ukrainians said they're never going to allow themselves to be annexed to russia. that they will fight to the last man. so how do you see that insurgency playing out, if, god forbid, russians take control of kyiv? how do the ukrainians then resist that? i know our own experience in iraq says a population that's determined to resist can resist and get you out of there. we've seen it in south africa and other places, but how do

they resist if the russians take control of the city? >> just my personal opinion, one, i don't think they brought enough to take, and definitely didn't bring enough to hold. to fight a counterinsurgency, the numbers you need are astronomical. this isn't iraq. like you said, i had two combat tours, experienced a lot of insurgency. but that was maybe 1% of the population. this is going to be a giant percent of the population that will resist. if russia, if they take kyiv and install a government, they're going to face years -- i don't think they can sustain being there with the insurgency they'll face. >> yeah. absolutely. i want to thank you, major john spencer. i am going to jump away from you for just a moment. i want to go back to ali velshi. that train has come in, ali. i'm going to try to grab you before we get to a break. >> i'm with nbc news.

joy, i'm talking to a number of people that have gotten off this train. this gentleman has just come in, we were speaking, where were you coming from, where were you staying in ukraine? >> in kharkiv. >> and then you got on this train there or came to the border? [ inaudible ] >> where are you from? [ inaudible ] >> did you have any trouble coming in? >> i don't mind about that. >> you're happy to be out? >> happy to be out. >> what are you going to do now, what is your plan now? [ inaudible ] >> go back to ukraine? [ inaudible ] >> do you have accommodations

here? do you have somebody you know here? >> i called my sister who has a friend here. >> your sister has a friend here? [ inaudible ] >> you're going to go to your sister's friend? excellent. i'm glad you're safely out. >> thank you. >> welcome to hungary. >> thank you very much. >> reporter: joy, this train has just come in. it looks like a couple hundred people who have gotten off here. you can see the police in the background. look at these people with the bags they're carrying. children around us carrying toys. toys are one of the things they do receive by the way when they get here. there's food, there are toys, medication, personal health needs being met. you see the police here. there have been no trouble or violence at all. let's go in here and see what they're doing. as soon as you get here, there's fresh fruit. there are medical products, paper goods over here.

there are hygiene needs. there are sandwiches all over this side on the left. there are beverages. people have blankets. hot beverages, cold beverages, snacks, medications. as people go through this hall, this is the hungarian red cross, there's water, juices, medication available. they go outside and they will be watched with people who will dry them to where they need to go, and they do have lists of people who have agreed to accommodate these refugees as soon as they get here. so they will be paired out. there's a new group of volunteers. you can see the signs all over the place. there are people who hold up signs that talk about what languages they speak. so if a refugee gets off, somebody seeking asylum, then they come out here and this is where they get help in terms of transportation, health care, and accommodation needs. you can see people are urging

everybody to walk out and find what they need. there are family members here who are greeting people who have arrived. some people have a plan. some people will go to their embassies. some people have tickets to go to poland or their home countries, wherever those home countries may be. there are a number of students who are being greeted by their embassies. that's what is happening here. people are getting information. if you can see this woman here, this band says info on it. some people will have a band that says transportation. this is mostly civilian run. this is not a government initiative here in hungary. hungary continues to be a country where they struggle with immigration in general. and it's got -- for the moment, they are a nato country, and this is what it looks like when a train of refugees comes in from the ukrainian border and arrives here in budapest. we now have more than 10% of all the people who have left ukraine

have come to hungary. joy? >> ali velshi, so valuable. fascinating reporting. while you're there, i hope as we come back to you, we can get a sense of how the government there in hungary is reacting to this influx. because as you said, this is an anti-immigrant government and the fact that this is happening. this is 10% of the outflow. so look forward to talking with you. stay safe. thank you, ali velshi. up next on "the reidout," according to plan, putin unloads a new pile of propaganda as the siege of ukraine continues. but russians are learning of the horrors. also, the white house announces new sanctions against putin's cronies. but is there any reason for putin to be concerned? plus, the january 6th committee says there is evidence that president trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy, and new developments tonight in the new york investigation. the story of a politician so filled with rage, he's taking it

out on children. normally, that person would be a prime candidate for the absolute worst. amazingly, we found someone even worse. "the reidout" continues after this. eidout" continues after this

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we all know russian president vladamir putin loves to portray himself as a strong man. through elaborate photo-opes perpetuating a macho man image, or his annual hockey exhibition games where, despite learning to play in life, he always notches an impressive number of goals. wonder why? in 2019, that image slipped, literally, as he took a victory lap during a match in sochi. that's all essentially a proxy for his aggression towards ukraine. the strong man, who in his mind, e pittizes russian strength falling on his face. he's been stripped of his honorary black belt from tae

kwan do. in another rambling diatribe today, putin leveled outrageous lies about the ukrainian people, and insisted that his war in ukraine is going according to plan. each as the so-called great russian army in ukraine is plagued by poor morale, with some soldiers surrendering. while the kremlin has tried to hide this from the russian people, the defense ministry confirmed casualties for the first time. and there's the crushing weight of sanctions. moscow stocks closed again for the fourth straight day. the foreign minister said russia was ready to conduct talks with ukraine, but added russia would continue the war to the bitter end. with me now, keer simmons and ann applebaum. i wonder if you are getting a sense of how much of the reality

of what's happening in ukraine, including the just extravagant violence, but also the failures on the part of the russian military are bleeding into the ears and eyes of russians inside of that country. >> i think it must be done by one russian, and that's vladamir putin. and that image you showed of him giving his speech today, he was quietly boiling. clear that he is furious, just by his -- by the way that he appears. and also determined. honestly, right now, joy, i think we're at a point where hope is hard to find. economic hope, military hope for the russians, but also for the ukrainians frankly. because despite the fact that they have had these setbacks, i heard cal talking earlier on this show, well, we heard from the french president who spoke for 90 minutes to president putin, that he believes the russians want to take the whole of ukraine, and i think that

president putin clearly is determined to do that. that's all the messaging that we have, that we are getting. joy, just think about this. i think it's pretty chilling, really, in terms of what we are looking at. you mentioned a little earlier the iraq war. i think the casualty numbers for u.s. forces in the iraq war was around 4,500. obviously many more civilians were killed. in russia's afghanistan war, over nine years, 15,000. now, the russians today claiming that they have had 500 people killed. the ukrainians are claiming 7,000 russians have been killed. we don't know the exact number, but we do know that the russian president today effectively admitted that russians are dying. and even offered the equivalent of $50,000 for each family where a russian has died. so he's trying to get his country to accept the kinds of casualties, and the problem is,

we can talk about that might change russian opinion. but what it might also mean is an astonishing clampdown on the people of russia, not just in terms of what they are allowed to know, but also whether they're allowed to protest and all those issues. and then you have this going down between russia and the west. i wish i could be more positive, but i think things look pretty dark tonight. >> and they're getting darker. we're getting reports of heavy weapons fire at the largest nuclear plant. that's terrifying. that is almost a worst case scenario, that they are shelling near the largest nuclear plant in ukraine. that sounds like indiscriminate, that does not sound like something going according to plan. and then the other little point that i'll make as well is russian mps calling for anti-war protestors. this for you as well, keir, to

be conscripted and sent to the front lines to fight. it sounds like they don't even want to raise the morale of their own people, just use them as cannon fodder and will risk a nuclear nightmare. they don't seem to care much about the russian people. >> reporter: what we saw today with president putin's speech today is his security council, who are there, but they weren't there, because they were on video, you know, beamed in. so once again, he's at a distance to who are supposed to be his closest advisers. we talked about the work we're doing trying to understand who is influencing president putin. it looks as if the people who are influencing him, some of the intelligence services, his bodyguards. there is this unit of presidential protection kind of team. a large organization, very

influential here in russia. you don't know this, but you can imagine a scenario during the last two years of covid, president putin might not have had so much access, certainly not with the oligarchs or his advisers, but with that tighter unit of intelligence officers and those kinds of people. so one imagines they are still the people he is talking to and is influencing him. and how has his -- how have his views changed? you know something, i used to stay about russia that be careful what you wish for, because president putin could be replaced by something more hardline and nationalistic. it looks like he has been replaced by that person, but it's president putin having shifted his position quite substantially. >> and anne, also having the former president loves to call put an genius and shrewd, this seems so incredibly wrong-headed to think that you can force 44

million people to rejoin your, you know, the empire in your mind, when they made it very clear they have no interest in doing that. calling a country led by a jewish man a nazi while ursheling the memorial to the holocaust inside of ukraine and saying you're going to conscript people protesting against the war. you're going to put guns to their heads to kill ukrainians. none of it is rational to me. i feel like i keep saying it over and over again. none seems rational to me. what do you make of where putin is mentally and strategically at this stage? >> so unfortunately, it is rational within putin's understanding of the world. in the talk he gave today, in the rant actually that he did on television today, he made it clear once again that his objective is to eliminate and remove the ukrainians.

you know, they haven't turned out to be the compliant people he thought they were going to be. he thought he would march in and they would be in kyiv in 48 hours and welcome the russian troops with flowers and the war would be over. he's very distant from reality. he has little sense of what modern ukraine is like. he has no contact with ukrainians, and i think probably the people around him have little contact either. you know, but his theory of the world, his theory of russian history and geography, is that space in which modern ukraine exists is really russian. so therefore, the logic of that is that we need to eliminate the people who are there. the so-called nazis, you know, the non-people, the evil people who have somehow twisted the minds of the inhabitants. we need to eliminate them and replace them with something else. this is really dangerous. really frightening, genocidal thinking. he's now thinking about

eliminating, destroying, you know, this targeting of civilians now is not an accident. it's about removing people from that space and substituting them with something else. >> and president zelenskyy has warned the world and said he won't be done. that this mania extends beyond ukraine. and if ukraine goes, so will many, many other countries. he'll try to get it all back, get the whole ussr back. do you think that it could be possible when this man clearly has not deployed enough troops, he doesn't have enough troops to really hold that country, that he would try for more? >> those are two different questions. yes, it's possible he could try for more. what he's trying to do is bring the west to its knees, bring america to its knees. he talks a lot about america, although we're so far away. and make them feel the shame and

humiliation that he felt at the time of the breakup of the soviet union. so he is trying to reverse history to replace the modern world with something in the past. kind of grotesque distortion of nostalgia. but the second part of your question, can he do snit one of the reasons so few people in russia believed this would happen is that he doesn't have the troops to hold ukraine. he doesn't have an occupying force. and one of the fears that people have is that since he can't occupy it, he will destroy it. so understanding that, and understanding that's his logic, and that he will then seek to spread those tactics as far as he can, i think it is really important right now so we understand the scale of what could happen, and the distortions of his mind. >> let me bring in former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcphaul. thank you for being here. i've been listening to all of

your television interviews with covetous, wrapped attention wait fog archance to talk to you. this idea that putin could bring the west to its knees, what he's brought to its knees is russia. he's brought their economy to their knees. he's turned them into a giant syria. they are an outlaw nation. they are a pariah nation. this seems like mad nmadness. what is happening? >> well, he's been obsessed with ukraine for a long time. he's wanted to roll back the revolution of dignity from 2014 for a long time. he was increasingly angry at the success of democracy in ukraine. so that's why he decided to go in, and i think we're talking a lot about the word rationality.

he's motivated by his own particular ideas, but they're not our ideas. the part we have underestimated and miscalculated is tolerance for risk, because we assumed he thinks like us. he doesn't. but he made three giant mistakes. one, he underestimated the ukrainian fight. i want to underscore what ann said. even if he does, everything he told us he was going to do, eliminate the ukrainian military and de-nazification, then what? he does not have a military to occupy all of ukraine. i don't think he has the ability to cleanse, i hate to use that word, ukraine of all the ukrainian people. so i don't think he understands what his endgame is in ukraine. but he also has underestimated what's happening inside his

country, because he's underestimated western resolve. he most certainly did not expect to see these sanctions. and his people back home, i talk to russians every single day, they didn't expect to see it. and i just think there's lots more passive resistance, not support, for this war back home. yes, i see those videos. they support them. but a lot of people have woken up to think oh, my gosh, this guy is literally out of control. for the rest of their lives, russia will be the pariah state you just talked about. >> let me ask you about these sanctions. you've been instructive for us to understand there are different oligarchs out there. what do you make of this latest round of sanctions? they are getting closer to putin's inner circle.

you have people like -- i'm just going to put the names up. but does this feel to you like the targeting is getting closer to the kind of oligarchs who, if they turned on putin, or could influence him, could change what's happening? >> yes and no. every time there's a new sanction, i do a cheer and i want more and more and more. i want assets to be taken and seized. i don't want them to be frozen. when the biden administration says, i say hoo-rah and let's do more. that's my policy position. but my analytic position, i think it's important to understand a couple of things. i know most of those gentlemen

you just showed. tokarev makes his money through the pipelines, very close to putin. as part of the oil and gas machine, and as long as we buy that, he will be fine. others have homes in london and dubai and wants to be part of the international system. he was the first deputy prime minister when i was ambassador. in other words, he wants to be part of that world. but neither of them have power over putin. so shabalov and some of those others, guess what? there's hard liners around putin that say, you know, great job. because they don't like those guys. they're the ones that got rich in the '90s. they want to see them suffer. whereas the guys that are close to him are rich, because putin made them rich. that doesn't give them a lot of leverage, vis-a-vie putin. >> yeah. sit a conundrum. it is a disaster.

but we are so thankful to have such brilliant people to talk to about it. thank you all so much. still ahead, the january 6th committee lays out a path to potential conspiracy criminal charges. we'll be right back. piracy crim charges. we'll be right back.

are you taking a statin drug to reduce cholesterol? it can also deplete your coq10 levels. i recommend considering qunol coq10 along with your statin medication. the brand i trust is qunol. okay. here is a headline that would be leading the news any other day. donald trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the united states. let that sink in for a moment that. explosive charge is from the committee investigating january 6th, which, for the first time, is alleging that trump and members of his inner circle, broke the law when they tried to steal the election from joe biden in 2020. it's part of a court filing by the committee yesterday against lawyer john eastman, who schemed with trump using undo pressure

campaign to show out the election results, and is now claiming attorney/client privilege. they say that they have evidence strongly suggesting eastman's e-mails may show that he helped president trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power. with me now, glenn kirshner. explain to us this conspiracy charge, what would have to be proved in order for this crime to be done and dusted, proved beyond a reasonable doubt? >> well, if prosecutors were handling this, joy, instead of the house select committee, we would have to prove there was an agreement between two or more people to commit an offense, any offense, and there are a couple in play. and that one of the members oh of the conspiracy did one thing

toward the commission of the crime. an overt act. and i'll tell you, this latest pleading by the house select committee in thompson -- eastman versus thompson, the first thing we ought to recognize is that's more than a dozen lawyers on the signature page. and these are serious, accomplished lawyers. some of whom i know. there's not a rudy or a sidney powell anywhere near the signature page of this pleading. they would not have put their names on this if they didn't have the good toss back up their assertion that donald trump, in their opinion, committed a number of crimes, trying to overturn the election results. this pleading has brought into fine focus, at least for me. maybe i'm slow on the uptake. the fact that we're kind of living in this upside down bizarro government world. we have three co-equal branches of government and each knows what it's supposed to be doing. the legislative branch can't prosecute anybody. yet they're conducting this

incredibly deep, involved, what seems to be criminal investigation of donald trump, and joy, they're filing documents in court saying we've got enough evidence to assert to a federal court donald trump committed crimes. you have the judiciary, which can't charge anybody with a crime, saying things like to the department of justice, we understand that you're prosecuting the people who breached the capitol, the foot soldiers, but they are but pawns in donald trump's game. and you have the judiciary saying that donald trump's conduct on january 6th is the essence of a conspiracy. but these two branches of government can't prosecute anybody. the branch of government responsible for prosecuting people, the executive branch through the department of justice, we get crickets. this is not the way government is supposed to work. >> and it seems it only works that way for donald trump or

maybe because he's a republican. i don't know what's going on at doj. just dial this back for a second. it would seem to me if donald trump is involved in this conspiracy, he would have to know that he really did lose. we have lots of people on the record, including william barr, who is , so that means the head of his department of justice told him that all the conspiracy stuff about fraud was bs, okay? you also have the actual act of trying to stop the election. you have donald trump himself saying in georgia, i just need 11,000 votes. it just seems like it was aware that you wanted to take away an election that he lost, that he was aware, at least for the doj, that he had lost. and now, you have another guy. the first genuine six defendant to go to trial yesterday, prosecutors opened oral arguments against the defendant in this january six trial.

i know that you attended that trial. but you also had the january 6th defendant was pleaded guilty to suggest this conspiracy, his name is joshua james. he's a member of the oath keepers. he admits, i was involved in the conspiracy. if he starts saying, donald trump was a part of it. i don't see how the doj could ignore that. >> no, i don't see how the doj has ignored the mountain of evidence regarding donald trump's criminal responsibility for all of this, that we see reported every day. and you're exactly right, when your highlighting the evidence of donald trump's corrupt intent. because usually intent is hard to prove because we have no way of looking into the human mind, to discern what somebody intense. so usually, we have to infer intent from conduct and statement. but here, we have direct evidence of donald trump's corrupt intent, not only because bill barr told him, there was no fraud undermining the election. not only because describes an ounce that this was the most secure election in u.s. history,

but because remember there was also reporting about a meeting donald trump had with some of his doj officials, we are again, he was being told that there was no fraud undermining the election. and he said, the words out of his own mouth, which actually constitute direct evidence, i don't care if there was no fraud, just say there was, and leave it up to me and my allies in congress! intent is usually hard to prove. it won't be, if we can just get this case before 12 people in a jury box. >> and that is up to merrick garland, where is merrick garland? that is the question every single day. glenn kirschner, thank you so much. always great to talk with you and make some sense of this. stick around for tonight's absolute worst as irony becomes the so-called free state of florida delicious export. that is next. that is next

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are you taking a statin drug to reduce cholesterol? it can also deplete your coq10 levels. i recommend considering qunol coq10 along with your statin medication. the brand i trust is qunol. >> ron desantis says he's all

about parental rights. so much so that is the official line of the draconian, don't say gay bill. last year, he made a big deal about passing the parents bill of rights during covid. and an executive order explicitly allowed parents to choose whether or not their kids wear masks. but that right to choose only seems to apply if parents do what desantis wants them to do. so their mask-wearing kits don't ruin this photo op. >> please stake this [inaudible] it's not doing anything, and we

gotta -- so if you're not wearing it, but this is ridiculous. >> to start, governor said is a blatant lie that masks don't do anything. we know that masks helped save many many lives throughout this pandemic. and the cdc still recommends masks where he was, because tampa currently has with the cdc describes as a high transmission rate of covid. most importantly, he is infringing on the parental rights, he claims to care so much about. so on any normal day, the glaring hypocrisy of ron desantis would make him the absolute worst. but no, there is someone even worse out there. >> it might be time for joe biden to let us know what ketanji brown jackson was. why wouldn't you tell us? that that was the question conclusively asked whether she is a once in a generation legal talent, the next hand. >> we couldn't get into an iv talk carlson, never asked to see any other nominees.

as the coal hannah-jones so aptly tweeted, this is textbook racism, not even a dog whistle. outside of a ridiculous argument that's going to get into law school are the measure of qualification, long after law school, plus a lengthy judicial career. they're presumption that black people are dumb his standard white supremacy. ketanji brown jackson has an extensive amount of experience, as elliott williams tweeted, when she was nominated. imagine a supremely qualified scotus nominee with to harvard degrees with honors, a scotus clerkship for the justice they would replace, and the two years as a federal judge. that is chief justice, john roberts. ketanji brown jackson has all of that, plus seven more years as a judge. in contrast, amy coney barrett was the least qualified nominee in recent history. and tucker's question, did he hurt her experience? he sure did not. instead, he said there was no question she was qualified for the job. i can see just by looking at it. he then praised her remarkable family that she was maybe the

most impressive person to receive a supreme court nomination in memory! so for his not even try to hide it anymore, blatant, and frankly, stupid racism, tucker carlson is once again tonight's absolute, absolute worst! and that is tonight's read out. all in chris hayes starts now. >> tonight on all in. >> it's not about i want to talk with putin. i think i have to talk with putin. the world has to talk with putin because there are no other ways to stop this war. >> moms keep falling in ukraine, leading a wake of destruction and death. and the humanitarian crisis grows. new signs, the economic war being waged on russia's taking a massive toll. then, ambassador bill taylor on the american politics surrounding ukraine that led us to this moment. plus, congressman jamie raskin on his committees explicit declaration,