episodes of the ayman show on fridays on peacock, the rachel maddow show starts right now. shows fridays on peacock, the rachel maddow show begins right now. >> good evening, thanks, my friend, much appreciated. back in february a week before putin started his war against ukraine, the president of brazil, the very trump-y president of brazil, flew to russia spent three days in moscow, and obviously met with putin, after his putin meeting, from that trip, the president of brazil made some headlines, for saying that his country, brazil, was quote in solidarity with russia. now, again, keep in mind the timing here. this is february this year. this is a time when the whole world was on tenter hooks

expecting that putin was about to start a big war and invade ukraine and there is brazil's president hopping into putin's proverbial lap, goes to moscow and does a three-day official trip to moscow, a big meeting, a big photo op with putin and denied that putin would launch a war in ukraine for good measure and explained how brazil was closer than ever to russia. don't worry, world. putin's great. he's not going to do anything bad. he's my guy. and putin invaded ukraine. which was awkward for the brazilian president. but now today, brazil's president has decided that he will handle that very embarrassing turn of events the way i'm sure we all wish we could. he has decided he will dump it down the memory hole and close the door on it. jair bolsonaro today decreed that all public records

concerning that very bad timing, three day official trip he took to moscow, right before putin launched his war, all public records of that will now be sealed for at least five years. so even though he went to moscow and told everybody that putin was going to start no war, and that brazil stood with russia, no one is allowed to know what happened on that trip. or nobody is allowed to know who else was traveling with bolsonaro on that trip until at least 2027. the records have been sealed for five years. and just like that, you know, he's assuming it will all be forgotten. maybe it will be. the other would-be president who, would-be president, presidential candidate who has an embarrassing putin ring kissing photo op she would like everybody to forget is this person on the left of the screen, running to be the next

president of france, emanuel macron is running against le pen, the far right neo fascist party and they held the one and only debate this afternoon that they will have before the election this weekend and it is a two and a half hour long debate, the only one, people all over the world watched the debate because thestakes in this rate are so hot and one french broadcast had it online with realtime english speaking speakover. the english speaking world's intense interest in it justifies that. this is not just the normal european election in normal time, no offense to france, in general, it matters who the president of france is, france is an important country on its

on merit but this one really matters because of the whole western world because if france picks marine le opinion and puts in a pro-putin far right leader from a neo fascist party and one who will effectively pull france out of nato, who will block what the european nato is doing to support ukraine and punish russia for that war, if france elect le pen it will start the world spinning the other way on its. is in some important way and nato and europe and all of our allies unifying with ukraine, to try to stop putin and the law, if france elects le pen, that would likely end all of that and very quickly. but at least on that point today, on le pen's support for vladimir putin on her having to shred the million plus campaign

she made shaking hands with putin at the kremlin and taking millions of dollars from a kremlin-linked bank to fund her campaign, at least those points she got her proverbial derriere handed to her in macron. there was a voiceover realtime english speaking version to this debate and you can follow along and we will have that in a couple of minutes. that was a very big deal. a couple of years ago, in the late summer of 2019, we spent a bunch of time on this show covering something that was basically a mystery, it was definitely a little bit scary at the time, and even though this happened two and a half years ago now, it is something that still today hasn't ever really been fully explained. >> tonight, russia is facing new questions over the recent explosion at a missile testing

site after telling a nuclear monitoring group to stay out of it. he get more from nbc's bill nealy. >> a growing mystery tonight about exactly what happened days after a nuclear explosion that killed five russian nuclear scientists. at least four radiation monitoring stations nearby went silent. and stopped transmitting data. russia told an international nuclear watchdog today, mind our own business. russia admitted radiation levels did spike briefly after the accident. which was tied to the testing of a nuclear missile engine. president putin said yesterday, there is no threat, no risk of increased radiation. the kremlin is also furious. an international nuclear watchdog tweeted this map of a potential radiation plume, spreading across russia. the kremlin calls that absurd. warning the watchdog to back off. claiming it can withhold any data. nuclear experts say russia's

real aim is to hide secrets about this a nuclear missile that could evade american defenses. russia concealing from the u.s. exact data on its nuclear fuel. >> two of the russian radiation monitoring stations are now working again, but russia has proved once again that when it comes to the national security, it will hide what the world might want to know. >> it wilt hide what the world might want to know. that was bill neely reporting for "nbc nightly news" a couple of years ago, august, 2019. and they did have some sort of big fatal accident. russia initially said it was just a normal rocket. they called it a liquid-fueled rocket. normal rocket. little mishap. nothing nuclear. a couple of soldiers sadly killed in the failure of this rocket launch but nothing to worry about. that was quickly proven false. a town about 25 miles away from the accident site started

reporting that its radiation meters, radio activity meters were going crazy after the accident. the russian government then made that town take down those reports and shut up about it. only later did the russian government have to announce that okay, maybe there was something nuclear about the accident and maybe it wasn't just a couple of soldiers who died, it was a couple of soldiers and also five elite nuclear scientists. there were then reports that even the doctors and nurses who treated people who were injured in the accident, those doctors and nurses were themselves ear radiated by having had come in contact with those injured people, those medical personnel were all taken from the local hospital near the blast site and they themselves were transferred to moscow so they could be treated. there were reports of an attempted evacuation of civilians from another town nearby to the blast site, an evacuation attempt that was apparently planned, they brought in a train to bring all of the civilians out and changed their mind and left them all there. there were those very worries

shut-offs of the radiation monitoring stations in that part of russia, first the one closest to the mysterious accident and then a few days later, ones further away and then a few days later, ones further away than that. russia has never admitted what happened there two and a half years ago but it is clear something went wrong, and with something related to a weapon. a weapons cast maybe. something went wrong with some kind of weapon, something went wrong in a nuclear sense. and it killed people. and it does appear to have spread radiation all over it. is believed to be the most serious release of radiation internationally since the 2011 fukushima nuclear disaster. and we still don't know what caused it. we still don't know what russia was up to and what went wrong and what that was all about. later reports suggested it might actually have been a salvage mission for some kind of a

muge-powered missile that had previously failed and fallen into the sea and they were trying to get that nuclear-powered missile that had wrecked at an attempted launch, they were trying to get that out of the sea and maybe that is what caused the explosion that killed all of the scientists. who nose. like i said, we have lots of speculation but we still dedon't know, even though. that is in part because the world kind of let it slide. i mean in a world that is supposedly polices nuclear material and nuclear weapons and nuclear ambitions, so kbrev aggressively, the united states and nato basically mount nod response to that mysterious accident in northern russia two and a half years ago. putin was doing something nuclear that was reckless enough to have caused that much of a disaster. and then the russian government released lies and then just no information about it and the world was like that's scary, looks like a mystery, let's move on. now, there was reporting at the time, again this happened back

in 2019 during the trump administration, there was reporting that nato felt constrained in their ability to responds. nato felt constrained in their ability to confront putin over what had happened. over something potentially so serious, involving the country's nuclear weapons program, basically nato had a real weakness on that issue in 2019. in 2019, nato was worried they couldn't confront putin on something that serious because of president trump's attitude toward putin and who knows what trump would do if you tried to have nato confront putin over what happened. and who knows if that is in fact why the whole thing was kind of left to slide, but the whole thing was left to slide. today, russian state media which is the only kind of media left in russia, russia was all fall of the same pictures and same

headlines about russia test firing a missile that putin says is russia's newest and most powerful nuclear-armed icbm, perhaps the most powerful nuclear weapon in the world. the intercontinental ballistic missile, russia says it is capable of dropping multiple nuclear payload, almost anywhere on earth, in a way that can't be stopped by any country's missile defense systems and oh, by the way each of the nuclear warheads it can drop is capable of wiping out the size of france, or say texas. do we believe russia's claims about this massive new missile? who knows. i mean in russia, it's not like there is even a free press to interrogate the government's plans but even with countries with the free press, it is hard to get the truth out of governments, about new and experimental posts, and we do know that state-controlled media in russia wants the russian people today to believe that that missile test was the most important thing that happened in the world today.

we also know that the place they launched the missile test was the site of another weapons test disaster back in 1980. a disaster that killed 50 people, a rocket exploded on the launching pad there, while it was, 50 people were killed and russia kept it secret and the world didn't know about it until almost a decade later when westerners were brought in 1989 to watch a satellite launch and the guy basically leading the tour of the site let it slip about the 50 men who were killed in the rocket disaster there back in 1980. oh, was i not supposed to mention that? did you guys never hear about that? that was supposed to be a secret. my bad. today, the associated press had an unnerving report on what happened at chernobyl, that disaster happened in 1986, and chernobyl has been the most radio active place on earth ever since.

chernobyl is also inside ukraine and you may remember at the very start of russia's invasion of ukraine, chernobyl is one of the first places that putin sent in soldiers to occupy. why putin sent in russian soldiers to occupy chernobyl we don't understand but we're finally now starting to get a better idea of what the russian diswhile they were at that site. this is from the associated press. date line chernobyl ukraine. in the earliest hours of russia's invasion of ukraine in february, thousands of tanks and troops ran into the chernobyl forested exclusion zone churning up highly contaminated soil from the site of a 1986 accident that was the world's worst nuclear disaster. in the dirt of one of the world's most radio active place, russian soldiers dug trenches. ukrainian officials worry they were digging their own graves. for more than a month, some russian soldiers bunked in the earth, in site of the massive

structure built to contain radiation, from the damaged chernobyl nuclear reactor. of a, a closer inspection of their trenches was impossible because even walking on that dirt is discouraged because of radio activity. the deputy head of the state agency that manages the chernobyl exclusion zone told the a. p. today that he believes hundreds of thousands of soldiers damaged their health, likely with little idea to the consequences, despite plant workers' warnings to their commanders. told the a. p., most of the soldiers were around 20 years old. the full extent of russia's activities in the chernobyl exclusion zone is still unknown, said the a. p. today, especially because the troops scattered mines that the ukrainian military is still searching for. some of those mines have detonated, further disturbing the radio active ground at the site. the russians also set several forest fires, at the chernobyl

exclusion zone. ukrainian authorities cannot monitor radiation levels across the chernobyl exclusion zone today because russian soldiers stole the main server for the system, severing the connection on march 2 nz just days after they occupied the side. the russians even took chernobyl staffers' personal radiation monitors. so they're operating without those now, too. why did they do that? and did they have any idea what they were doing? i mean these russian soldiers in chernobyl at the start of the day and stayed with five weeks apparently with no idea what they were getting into, only now are we starting to learn how fantastically reckless and presumably ignorant they were about one of the most radio active places on earth. the international atomic energy agency said today that the head of the iaea said a leading mission of experts to chernobyl

sometime in the next two weeks to try to assess how much damage was done by the russian occupation and nuclear safety and security and radiological assessment of the site will be done and they will try to set up new monitoring systems to replace the ones the russians all looted and stole, presumably without even knowing what they were for. all of this is happening of course while the war is still under way in ukraine. while russia appears hell-bent on taking over all of ukraine or at least all of it can zra. and while the russian southerlies who occupied the russian exclusion zone are out of there today, that's why the a. p. was able to get in there today, russian soldiers as of right now, as of tonight, they are still at a nuclear power plant, and it is a moth ball, stuck under a dome like chernobyl, they're still at a nuclear power plant in ukraine that is currently operating. russian soldiers right now are still occupying the largest currently operating nuclear power plant in ukraine, which is also the largest nuclear power

plant in all of europe. russian soldiers are there now. they know what they did while they were in chernobyl. how are they doing with the one that is currently operating right now, right? just as we're learning the extent to which these guys were staffed and understand and can be trusted with all things nuclear, there's all of this intention as to whether or not putin wants to use nuclear weapons in the fight in ukraine. what about the nuclear damage his troops are doing on the ground at nuclear power sites? joining us now is james acton the co director of the nuclear policy program for the carnegie endowment for economic peace, i appreciate you taking the time to be with us tonight. thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> i'm not an expert on these things. i'm a lay observer just trying to sort of absorb this information. you are an expert. let me ask you if i described any of that wrong or if i got any of it the wrong way around. >> no, i think that was a very good picture, a very good summary of the nuclear situation on the ground. my primary concern is about the

nuclear power that russia is currently occupying at zaporzhiazhia. that is an active plant that needs more radio active cooling and it is much more lily radio active and not surrounded by a , by an exclusion zone. so russia's behavior is reckless. and you know, russia has now left chernobyl and it is in a much worse state than it found it but as you pointed out, that zaporzhiazhia is still under occupation. >> it is a gigantic plant, it is currently operating. and as you say, one of the imperatives there for a currently operates plant is active cooling and indeed for a plant that generates a lots of

power, it also needs to have a power source that allows it to actively and constantly cool the hot fuel rods that are a by-product of the production of nuclear power at a facility like this. in a war zone like ukraine, especially one that is grinding none this many days of war, with artillery driven combat, it seems like keep can the power on for a big plant like that, or for any nuclear power plants in ukraine is not at all a sure thing and that alone could potentially be a very dangerous thing. >> that's exactly right. under normal condition, an accident at a nuclear power plant is very unlikely. because you have all of these different safety systems in place. so you have an electricity grid connection to provide energy to the cooling connections, and if they fail, you have emergency backup fuel generators, and you have other backups, and the problem is, in a war, a failure

of all of these different systems together, it becomes much more like it does in peacetime, you can easily imagine fire starting a war, which is what may happen at zaporizhzhia and you can imagine that fire knocking out certain situations, and fire crews could try to put out the fire, but when that happened a few months ago, we saw those firefighters were literally shot at, they couldn't get to the plant for a while. now, fortunately the fire a month or so ago was not in the actual reactor itself, but zirch that -- but given the plant is occupied at the moment, it is highly likely we could see renewed fighting around that plant, and deliberately or inadvertently, one could imagine damage to that plant, or fire,

or damage to the power supplies or cooling systems, and that led to a serious accident, because all of these different layers of zence is norm -- layers of defense is normally in place around a nuclear power plant and under normal circumstances, simultaneous cooling system, all of these different stages, they could be very unlikely, and it is much more imaginative in a war that that there could be failures leading to a serious accident. >> the prospect of a fukushima or another chernobyl in the middle of this war is so, it is just, it's terrifying. i have to ask you before i let you go about the extent of discussions that are happening around the potential use of nuclear weapons, i think vladimir putin has proven himself to be unpredictable and he has proven to be willing to do things that were previously thought of as unthinkable. today, i'm conscious of the fact that the finnish parliament in

finland, deciding with whether or not to join nato, that's one of the things that he threatens that he would put nuclear weapons more in play, in the baltics if finland and perhaps sweden think about joining nato. we saw this test of a very highly-touted test, of a presumably new type of nuclear weapon, today by russia, cnn today quoted u.s. officials say they're more concerned about the threat of russia using nuclear weapons than any time during the cold war. how do you feel about these things who studies these things for a living? >> i can't rule out russia and ukraine and i'm less worried than a month or two back. at the beginning of the back, the first part of the war, putin came out and made a very exclusive nuclear threat, and i was pretty nervous about the immediate russian ukraine use, about the possibility of nuclear

isolation, and i am looking at that possibility today, but the war progressed in a way that makes me think it is a bit less likely than it was a month or so ago. you know, putin has scaled back his war aims, he is now mostly focusing on east ukraine. which means that he has, you know, if you scale down your aims, we don't achieve them, you know, the gap there is different than if you continue to go after the whole of ukraine. i think another condition that would make him more likely to use nuclear weapons is if his hold on power is seriously threatened. we're not seeing that at the moment. he still appears to be very popular in russia. he has complete control of the media. but nonetheless. and the russian economy doesn't appear to be on the verge of complete collapse. so i think from putin's perspective, i think he absolutely realizes that using

nuclear weapons would be risking dangerously, and i think he would only use them if he thought the risks of using them were smaller than the risk of not using them because the consequences of not using them were so dire, and i think the good news is we're not all that close to that position today. another detractor of russia's dangerous movements, is the testing of the icbm but i am somewhat less worried than i was a month ago. >> james acton pro director of the program for the national endowment of international peace, thank you for your time, and this is a sca a scary topic your clarity is calming thank you. clarity is calm ing thank you.

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in the great state of tennessee, the fifth congressional district is right here, the only district in the whole state that doesn't share a border with another state, basically the land-locked senate congressional district and it turns out there are a whole bunch of tidbits about that district that are of interest to people who live, there nothing that maybe you could sort of make up a whole game show about it if you wanted to, a local nashville station has done, that it is called taking the fifth and the game show goes a little bit like this. >> here we go. what three interstate highways are located in the fifth congressional district? >> okay, i'm a terrible driver, just know that. i don't drive anywhere right now. >> i-65, i-40, and i-24. >> i don't drive anywhere that i go. it is all hand gliding, i don't know. if you don't like driving that might be a tricky question, the

thing you need to know about this trivia game show though, about this fifth congressional district in tennessee they don't invite random people to play the game, specifically invites the people to play this game if they are running for congress to represent the district, that clip was a republican candidate who is running the republican primary, to try to fill an open congressional seat in the tennessee area and she goes on a local radio show, to show her would-be constituents how, you know, how she deserves to be their representative, how one she is with the people of the fifth district. and her first question that was about the three interstates in the district, that didn't go well. you know, it is just the first question though. plenty of time for redemption. >> a country music superstar, famous multigrammy award winning performer has a popular winery in the center of the fifth district in arrington, tennessee. >> i've been to that winery. >> oh, okay.

>> yeah. >> it's great. i love that winery. >> who owns it? >> who owns it? >> you got this, right? you've been to the winery. you bought some of their wine. i bought some wine. okay. you got this one. you've been there. right? this one, at least she is going to get this one, right? you have to answer the question though. >> it's great. i love that winery. i bought like -- >> who owns it? >> i don't know who owns it but i love it. we went there for the summer and had a picnic outside. it was beautiful. >> kix brooks. he's a tennessean. >> who owns the winery. who owns it? no idea. absolutely no idea. here's another one. this is about that big giant car dealership in your district, right in the center of the district, huge, you can't miss it, everybody who lives there knows that one. >> one of the most famous nascar drivers lives in the fifth district, has a large auto dealership in franklin.

who is that? >> you know, my husband is the car guy. he knows all of the, he used to race, he knows all of the racing stuff. >> darryl wap -- waltrip. >> she is realizing in realtime how bad this is going. >> i think these are all tennessee question, patrick. this is going very poorly for me. >> but there's one more, the last one, from the very end of the game. >> rather well-known confederate general, one whose name in history has been a source of enormous controversy in tennessee the last few years was born and raised in the community of chapel hill, in the fifth district. who was it? >> i don't know. >> nathan bedford forest. what county is chapel hill in? >> i don't know. >> marshall county. it's in your district. >> so that did not go well for that candidate. her name is morgan ortegas and

it is a remarkable thing to see, this kind of disillusion, a candidate for public office not being able to name the counties in her district. but it's another thing entirely when that candidate was hand picked to run for that seat by the defacto head of the republican party. morgan used to work in the trump administration, she has been personally endorsed for that seat by donald trump, he was in such a rush to endorse her, he didn't have a chance to announce she was officially running for it and incredibly important for republicans and held by a democrat who is running so the republicans have a reasonable chance to pick tup, a crowded field, like a dozen republicans running in the primary, and you would think that being hand picked by the former president, that would be like a golden ticket to the top of the field, except morgan ortagus has no idea what she's doing there. she's not from tennessee. she only moved to the state last year. . perhaps evidenced by that disastrous local radio appearance. she doesn't even live in the

district she is running to represent. and so this is set up an interesting thing because this is not actually just a story about her but a story about donald trump and the influence on the republican party because the surprise twist that the republicans in the tennessee legislature that decided that trump endorsement or not, they were not going to have her as the republican candidate. the republican led tennessee legislature decided to pass a bill that requires anybody running for congress in tennessee to have lived in their district for at least three years before they run. that seemed squarely aimed at getting her off the ticket for that seat. then there is another problem. the tennessee secretary of state said that new bill wouldn't actually apply to ms. ortagus because it was passed after the filing deadline, but then republicans in the tennessee legislature decided they were going to kick her out of the race anyway and voted to remove her name off the ballot.

donald trump's hand-picked candidate, they took her off the ballot, full stop. now, it's unclear whether it's going to actually work. morgan ortagus might challenge her removal from the ballot in court. but either way, this is a twist, right? this is an interesting and surprising time in the republican politics right now. i mean trump not getting his way in the republican party, particularly in the south, that's news. him getting popped in the nose by the republican party like that? this is definitely news. and it happens at a time when some other chickens are coming home to roost. we are keeping an eye on the story involving georgia congressman and trump loyalist marjorie taylor greene, scheduled to testify under oath this week about her alleged involvement in the insurrection january 6th and a group of republicans have filed suit challenging her ability to run for re-election this year and part of the constitution says you're not allowed to run for congress if you supported an

insurrection against the government. it was a post civil war effort to try to keep confederates out of the new u.s. government. whether that applies to marjorie taylor greene is now the subject of court hearings, she's scheduled to testify in person on friday, and i have to tell you there will be cameras in the courtroom, there is a ton of heightened interest in her testimony, so that's all happening this week, too. and then of course the case of the utah senator mike lee who appears to be maybe in the hottest water of the whole lot. we have been covering pretty intensely on had show the new text messages between senator lee and trump's white house chief of staff mark meadows in which senator lee repeatedly pushes for a theme to overturn the election results even though publicly, he opposed the effort, and publicly, he told, for example, the hometown press, in utah, that he had done no such thing. well that story about mike lee and what he did to try to overturn the election results and what he told the truth about or didn't, that story took another bad turn for him today. and that's next. stay with us. and that's next. stay with us

senator lee, these texts show you worked hard to try to overturn the presidential election. are you still okay with that? how come you won't talk about it, sir? your public position was much different than what those texts indicated. >> the republican u.s. senator mike lee of utah earlier today doing his best to pretend to not hear questions from reporters about something we've covered here recently on the show.

senator mike lee's text messages, recently revealed by cnn showing that senator lee was privately trying to help president trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. despite publicly saying at the time that he didn't support the scheme and was shocked to learn it just days before the january 6th attacks. a political reporter of the sut salt lake tribune has been trying to get a response from senator lee across the state of utah. here he was yesterday. >> senator lee, why did you lie about your involvement in the trump white house? >> senator lee, why won't you answer questions about this? >> that reporter, brian shot, tweeted that video this morning, this is what it's like now for local reporters trying to get answers from the utah's senior senator about his involvement in a plot to try to overturn the election. today utah's other big newspaper, published their own

piece on senator lee's texts in an emerging fiasco, said in a previous interview just after the january 6th attack, mike lee basically lied to him then about his involvement in it. quote during my original conversation with lee, he stated that his investigations into false election, stemmed from curiosity, not any attempt to aid the trump legal team's efforts to investigate or overturn electoral results. the text messages complicate this narrative. that is both of utah's biggest newspapers now asking senator lee questions about this. and lee's strategy is apparently to just ignore them and pretend they're not happening but one reporter did get a comment at the same event today from utah's other republican senator mitt romney. >> as you know, i think it was a mistake to try and overturn the election. on the part of president trump and those who were part of that effort. but the texts that i've seen from senator lee so far didn't suggest that he was recommending

anything that was illegal. >> you know things aren't going well for you when your allies people sticking up with you are having to deny publicly, to a gaggle of reporters that what you did was technically illegal. that's not a good turn. joining us now is salt lake tribune political reporter brian schott who has been getting these answers himself. thanks for being here. >> thank you for the opportunity. >> senator lee, his campaign has given statements, defending his behavior, after the election, and in the lead-up to january 6th, has he personally' dressed any of the controversy at all, put out a statement, talking to reporter, talking to anybody about it. >> no, he has not. at least not to my knowledge. that's why i went to the summit county republican convention last night. it was to have an opportunity to ask him some questions. i've been trying to find out what he knew and what was

happening ever since the eastman memo came to light in bob woodward's book. something about that just seemed off to me, especially about the fact that he talked so much about how he was trying to adhere to the constitution, he describes himself as a constitutional conservative, and it just seemed a little off to me, and then we find out that when john eastman appeared before the january 6th committee, he took the fifth amendment when he was asked about his communications with mike lee. he had said in another publication that he and mike lee were working on something else. we still don't know what that is. so this seemed a little bit off to me ever since that came out. and when these text messages came out, i wish i was surprised at some of the things that they showed but i wasn't. >> you're obviously a much closer observer of utah politics

than anybody in my position can be, but it seems to me like senator lee's problem here, may not be with his constituents, that he tried to aid the white house, in coming up with a way to overturn the election results, and keep trump in power and trump lost, it seems to me that that is not that comfortable among supporters in republican politics in utah but i can't imagine it won't be a problem for him to have lied about it, to have mischaracterized his involvement, when he first learned that it was happening, what his reaction was when he first learned what eastman was doing. that lying to the hometown press and reporters, lying public about what he was doing at the time, that at leigh least from the out -- at least from the outside feels like he might have trouble with that. >> you would think. but on saturday, we have the republican state convention. and the 4,000 delegates who are going to show up for that, the

vast majority of them love mike lee, he is a rock star at these events. i had one republican operative in the state tell me that mike lee could go on stage and read these text messages verbatim as his speech and we get a standing ovation. that's how much they love him. and i think with a lot of the voting public or at least the gop base here, it just shows how hard he was fighting for donald trump. i really don't know how this is going to play out. i don't know if he is going to pay a price for lying about when he came in john eastman's orbit and when they were discussing this plan to apparently send alternate electors which would make this entire scheme adhere to the constitution. and you know, i often wonder if those electors had shown up, would mike lee have gone along

with this, and objected? i think we have. because that's what he was hinging the entire thing on. >> sat lake tribune politics reporter brian schott, thank you for your diligence and trying to get comments at the center of the story and thanks for your help tonight. i appreciate it. >> any time. we'll be right back. stay with us. l be right back. stay with us (woman) oh. oh! hi there. you're jonathan, right? the 995 plan! yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right. excuse me? aren't you jonathan from tv, that 995 plan? yes, from colonial penn. i love your lifetime rate lock. that's what sold me. she thinks you're jonathan, with the 995 plan.

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>> it takes a while to pay back a loan. we repay for a loan every single month. under the supervision of the campaign -- but look, you still haven't paid it back. >> it is true, that we are a political party, with not a whole lot of resources, but there's honor in that. >> there's nothing wrong with, that but there is a dependency thing. look so many of your choices can be explained, linked by this relationship. >> this is simply not true. >> i do have loan, like all of our citizens, to buy a house, to buy a car, to use your example, but we have not gone and taken a loan out in russian banks. >> i too have loans but i haven't taken out a loan from russian banks and not paid them back, millions of euros later when running for president. the election in france is sunday, this weekend, the future of europe and ukraine and even russia may actually hang in the balance in that election.

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that is going to do it for us tonight. thank you for being here us with. i'll she you again tomorrow night. ""way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. breaking news, overnight, vladimir putin declares success in the war-torn city of mariupol. what about the ukrainian fighters and civilians still holed up inside that steel plant? this comes as russia test launches a new missile, and issues a warning to its adversaries. we'll have reaction from the pentagon. plus, a false alarm at the capitol and the biden administration looks to get the mask mandate for travel reinstated. good morning and welcome to "way too early." on this thursday, april 21st. i'm jonathan lemire. as russia continues to pummel eastern ukraine moscow test-l