♪♪ ♪♪ >> hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. today a brand-new window into the evidence in the hands of the january 6th investigators up on the hill in the first of what is expected to be a steady stream of letters from the select committee to republican members of congress believed to have information about the deadly insurrection. today's letters issued this morning to congressman ronny jackson, andy biggs and mo brooks asking for their cooperation in the probe and

importantly, detailing exactly what the committee believes they might be able to shed light on. before the fact-finding portion of the investigation ends and the public phase begins and a it starts a little more than a month from now which means these letters can help to flush out our road map of what the committee already knows about the events leading up to and immediately following the january 6th attack. one example from that letter to congressman ronnie jackson, quote, while the january 6th attack on the capitol was under way, members of the oath keepers including its leader, stewart rhodes exchanged encrypted messages asking members of the organization to provide you personally with security assistance, suggesting that you have, quote, critical data to protect, end quote. the letter cites specific text messages which we'll get to in a minute and then adds a few questions they would like to ask the former congressman who is also donald trump's ex-physician, and that includes these, why would these

individuals have an interest in your specific location? why would they believe you have, quote, critical data to protect? why would they direct their members to protect your personal safety? with whom did you speak by cell phone that day? a lot to chew on there for congressman ronnie jackson, but it's not the only line of inquiry the committee is letting out into public view for the first time. there's also this from their letter to congressman andy biggs citing information from former white house personnel about, quote, an effort by certain house republicans after january 6th to seek a presidential pardon for activities taken in connection with trump's, forts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. it's an effort biggs was identified as being a part of and that's on top of signs of the committee's continued focus, and alleged planning meetings ahead of january 6th from that same letter to congressman biggs, quote, we are aware of your participation in certain

planning meetings both in person at the white house and remotely regarding various aspects of planning for january 6th. on december 21, 2020, for example, you and several other members of the house freedom caucus participated in an in-person white house meeting. the committee's questions about that meeting and a new window investigators have now opened into that trove of evidence they've uncovered around the january 6th attack is where we start today with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. carol lennig is here, msnbc contributor, and now an msnbc national security analyst. luke, the letters, i read some of those text messages and what they reveal to ronnie jackson. it seems like two prongs of what you cover day in and day out for us are represented here both in this possible coordination which

i think you first wrote about context between some of these far-right house members and the extremist groups and this is the first time i've seen everyday that bolsters those ties. what was your reaction to this letter to ronnie jackson and the text messages included? >>. >> ronnie jackson, we asked him for comment and he immediately said he knows nothing about any of these text messages. he doesn't know any of these oath keepers so he's denying it up and down, but the oath keepers seem to know him according to their own encrypted messages. one of them appears to have his cell phone number because stewart rhodes, the leader of the oath keepers asks him to give -- asks the person to pass on his information to representative jackson so that he would be in contact with them. they seem to know that he's moving around in the -- in the

capitol and that he needs protection and that he has data that they want preserved. ronnie jackson denies all of this. he says he doesn't know how he came up in their conversations. so something's off here. someone's not telling the truth, and the committee wants to get to the bottom of it, but now congressman jackson is saying he's not going to meet with them and he's refusing to come in and he called the committee illegitimate and said it was on a witch hunt against him and he also bashed the media some. so it doesn't seem like ronny jackson will provide answers to the committee and so we may not know who is telling the truth. >> carol leonnig, it is your colleague who said the truth emerges who i'm sure we'll eventually know who is telling the truth. stewart rhodes has been charged with seditious conspiracy where

ronny jackson was at least conspiring or cooperating or collaborating, if you will, if we want to use the less loaded word, to be protected by and with stewart rhodes of critical data? i mean, this does not look good for ronny jackson and i will never forget until the day i die, the press conference he did as donald trump's doctor where he gave some ludicrous weight when he said about 210. someone who lies about little things certainly lies about big things, carol leonnig. >> when you and luke were talking about that, i was remembering that news conference -- >> two hours long. >> yeah. when luke said someone's lying here, the person with the credibility problem obviously is ronny jackson who was able to fabricate a whole new health profile for former president

donald trump including claiming, like, that he had no heart or blood pressure problems when his record clearly showed that he did have extensive history with that as did his father have deathly, deathly problems with his heart. i want to just say one thing about what is so striking about this new information as it relates to stewart rhodes, the federal probe, and also a cooperating witness. remember that stewart rhodes, the excitement began to build about him being charged with seditious conspiracy because when that first person pled guilty in his team, joshua james, i believe is his name, when that first person pled guilty the issue was those folks were providing security for key trump allies. the one key trump ally we knew they were providing security for was roger stone, donald trump's dirty tricks man also, by the way, president nixon's dirty tricks man, but let's put that

aside for a second, roger stone, so what did the cooperating stewart rhodes security guard, what did he know what roger stone said or did or was planning to do on that day? now we have a whole new mine shaft opened and what was up with him and ronny jackson. ronny jackson is one of the former president's artence supporters and enablers and would do anything donald trump said and has repeated any number of lies that donald trump has said as absolute fact. why did he need protection on january 6th? it seems to indicate that the rhodes sort of phalanx knew that things were going to get dicey and dangerous and knew that a congressman within was part of the protected class for whatever their plan was, he needed special shielding, and i think that's going to unravel and unveil a whole new issue about

the freedom caucus members who we know and we've reported on multiple times were planning something with donald trump and bragging about it in an overal oval office meeting now references, december 19th and several of them emerge crowing about how they have a plan to stop this rigged election and deal with this on january 6th. >> it's such an illustrative way of describing these letters, of opening a mineshaft and i want to stay with that, frank. the mineshaft that's been open and i do believe this was some of luke's earliest reporting on 1/6 and they were the earliest group of freedom caucus members and the extremists and one of the looming questions has always been will the committee or doj knit up the violence and the criminal conduct that took place almost in slow motion in front of all of our eyes, everyone who

sat and covered it for hours and hours, saw it happened and the people inside who in the moment, i believe, ronny jackson was also barricaded inside, but these texts, i want to put them up again. these are the messages in the ler. 3:00 p.m., he needs oath keeper help. anyone inside? that's just coordination among the extremists with a member's office being identified as a place to head to. user two. three minutes later. hopefully they can help dr. jackson. they're bashing in the heads and the hands and they're tasing capitol police officer, but they want to, quote, help dr. jackson. so he's on their side. not michael fanone. >> dr. ronny jackson on the move. needs protection. >> as ronny jackson is moving around the capitol, the insurrection firsts who are

beating capitol police officers to within minutes of their lives is looking for a member who he knows so much about. he knows he's moving, needs protection if anyone inside, cover him. it's like an active law enforcement or military action here. he has critical data to protect. stewart rhodes then, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy says this at 3:10. give him my cell. >> what do you make of that, frank? >> looking at this through the lens of a criminal investigator which i am or have been for 25 years, this is significant. the content of these letters is significant. why? because we're moving beyond witnesses to other people's behavior that have been called before the committee. we are now talking about sitting members of congress who are being asked to explain their own conduct, their own behavior,

their own relationships with violent extremist groups and we're not asking you to tell us about trump. we're asking you to tell us about you and doj should be paying close attention to that because these three members are being wrapped up as the committee expands their scope and as it is now clear evidence of some kind of prior knowledge by the oathkeepers of ronny jackson's location and then this mysterious, critical data that has to be protected and has to be preserved and is that something to do with plans for the insurrection? is it the fact that ronny jackson knows the true health situation as the president's former physician? is this a man who could lose his medical liens for lying to us at that press conference where no one believed the medical results of the exam. three sitting members of congress. he asked what to tell us what to know about trum or others and themselves and ronny jackson spikily tied into seditious

conspiracy defendants, extremely significant development. i believe pause of the current exposure because toj has to look at this, and should we be opening criminal investigations into these three? i predict that they're going to invoke the fifth. you're not going to hear from them and it's way too dangerous in terms of exposure. >> i want to come back to, as frank was saying, i want to come back to the letter and the questions that they have for ronny jackson that don't actually allege, as far as i can read in this letter, any wrongdoing and as frank is saying, what you want to understand is -- these, luke, are the questions they have for ronny jackson. it's evident from the exchanges above that the individuals believed the violence in the capitol would threaten the lives and safety of members of congress, and the exchanges above are the ones i've read already, raised several specific questions for you.

why would these individuals have an interest in your specific location? why would they believe you have critical data to protect? why would they direct their members to protect your personal safety? with whom did you speak by cell phone that day? >> luke, if i had to guess which one matters the most to answering whether or not he was plugged into what frank's talking about, the crimes that they have been charged with which is no indication he's even under investigation for is this last one, with whom did you speak by cell phone that day? you understand the investigator practices of this committee. do you think they've tried to obtain mr. jackson's phone records and haven't been able to or are they playing nice and trying to get him to turn them over first? >> my understanding is they have not issued subpoenas for phone records from any member of congress. >> like a red -- >> they're asking questions here. they're not demanding them. i do know the committee has been building out a great network of the cell phones that they do

have connecting phones to phones and building out, two, three, four rings out away from the white house and members of conduct. they're asking for connections, one of the key -- we know tlrd coordination around objections to -- to president biden's victory. we know there was koortd nargdz about overturning the election and how much of that involved the pressure campaign and the huge rally and the protests and then ultimately violence. i knew that was something the justice department was looking at and the committee i exploring that as well. here is a clear-cut example of a member of congress showing up with the encrypted messages of the oath keepers who are charged with sedition and that's going to raise a lot of questions as they look to connect the political world to the militia

world, and so, you know, this is an obvious place to ask questions. there are more members of congress to question and there are more members of the trump white house and the trump campaign to question, but what you have actual, encrypted messages of the oathkeepers specifically talking about one member of congress. that's a right area for investigation. >> yeah. we should say -- stewart rhodes has been charged with seditious conspiracy. we assume carol leonnig, they have his phone records including encrypted messages and we assume they have half of what they're looking for. >> absolutely. i thought it was, if i can just return to your earlier remarks. >> please. >> i think it's really striking that you ask the last question that comes from the letters from the committee. you know, who were you in cell phone communication with? well, who do you think is worried about ronny jackson's safety at that moment?

is it someone in the white house, by chance? you know, we don't have a lot of information right now publicly about all of the people that donald trump and mark meadows may have been calling or other trump allies may have been calling during this key window when violence is unfolding. when as marjorie taylor-greene remarks to mark meadows. there's an active shooter here. can you get the president to calm people down and this is not the way to solve anything. she's nervous at that point. >> republican members who have been really loyal to donald trump are frightened and they're reaching out to meadows and others, and so who directs that ronny jackson should get a special pretorian guard, and i would remind people that ronny jackson is one of donald trump's most favored allies and advisers and i wonder who sent the cavalry, so to speak? >> that's quite a good way to put it. frank, i want to ask you about

the pardons that are referenced in these letters and i think carol and her colleagues and luke and his colleagues have done reporting on this since it happened, but we have -- we have evidence or at least we understand that the committee has evidence in their possession and one of the questions they want to ask biggs is recent information has oifred an effort by certain house republicans after january 6th to seek a presidential pardon for activities taken in connection with trump's, forts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. your name was identified as a potential participant in that effort. as a criminal investigator, what is the significance of biggs being of interest in any probe into pardons? >> well, you don't need 25 years in the fbi to figure out the obvious. innocent people don't ask for

pardons. you don't ask for pardons if you haven't done anything wrong. this is what we call a clue in the business. the clue is that i'm involved in criminal activity. i need you to get me out of this. you know, there's another layer just below that which is, and you know if you don't get me out of this then i could incriminate you, right? that's a what's in it for me transactional understanding here. i need a pardon because i'm in trouble and by the way, you're motivated and you should be motivated to get me the pardon because you know that i know what you did. >> carol, this brings us right back to whether they decide this is a crime. this is also in the biggs letter. testimony received that day and in subsequent meetings addressed, among other things a plan that vice president pence is the presiding officer of the joint session on january 6th which unilaterally refused to count the certified electoral votes. at the end of the day, whether or not anyone decides that is,

that constitutes the crime of obstructing an official proceeding which is the statute that liz cheney read from, the federal statute, and we know from luke's reporting and the reporting at the post that there is enough evidence in the position of the select committee to make a criminal referral should they choose to. it suggests that at the committee level who else might have been involved in that crime? >> that's right, nicole. what's so interesting about this is if i can remind everybody about what jamie raskin said about five days ago. it was a side comment that didn't get as much pickup as what we've learned is going to blow the roof off the house. so this was different. he said also in a side-long conversation that there was a marriage. we are seeing a marriage between the domestic extremists who were

violently attacking the capitol on the outside, i'm paraphrasing a little here, and team trump's political effort to block thor is the if i kagsz. >> you may remember that one of the stop the steal, sort of architects, alexander saided goal of the extremist asks team trump was to create maximum pressure outside the capitol help when raskin says there is a marriage between the two he's seeing link an and some of the linkage could be these encrypted messages and some could be the december 19 and the follow-up december 20th meeting at the oval because we know the effort to stop the vice president from certifying the election, but pence balked at that plan and he

refused to take part in that plan and what happened? rioted right through its corridors, threatened to hang mike pence and stop, physically, what would happen that day because pence refused to do as -- as trump had ordered and bullied and pressured. and what i find the most intriguing is what inks those two teams and what links them and ultimately how much is the doj gathering about the linkage at this moment? >> those are the $64 million questions, and you're right. we all chase the shiny object which was blowing the house off, but what you're talking about was probably more newsworthy as well as i think he cited something, the most haunting words, you know that they've had and they've heard or pence said i'm not getting in that car. so it came so close to happening

exactly as they planned in the white house as they coordinated and planned it. it came alarmingly close to happening exactly as they had collaborated and planned for it to happen. three of the very best of the best on these stories. we'll hear more about these requests from the committee in the next hour when january 6th committee member pete aguilar will be our guest, for now our thanks to luke broadwater, carol and frank, stick around. when we come back, we're learning more about what the ex-president wanted to do to protesters marching in washington on a very different issue. they were there in the wake of the killing of george floyd. this report backed up the highest levels of the u.s. pentagon. plus, ukraine, resident of mariupol finally being evacuated weeks after russia took over their city. a live report on what is next for them, this after a weekend in which nancy pelosi and several of her colleagues met with president zelenskyy

reaffirming that the people of the u.s. will be with them for the long haul. the most racist show on cable television, a deeper reported examination into tucker carlson and the dangerous influence he holds on a huge number of american citizens and all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. stay with us. tinues after a quick break. stay with us allergies don't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psst! psst! flonase all good. ♪("i've been everywhere" by johnny cash) ♪ ♪i've traveled every road in this here land!♪ ♪i've been everywhere, man.♪ ♪i've been everywhere, man.♪ ♪of travel i've had my share, man.♪ ♪i've been everywhere.♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪ dry eye symptoms keep driving you crazy? ♪i've been everywhere.♪ inflammation in your eye might be to blame. time for ache and burn! over-the-counter eye drops typically work

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insurrection act. >> it's amazing still that had to be said from the podium, no less. if you forgot, god bless you. that was former defense secretary mark esper in june 2020 going on the record at the time because he had to. saying what he said right there that active-duty u.s. troops should not be used to quell the protests around the white house that were happening in the wake of the murder of george floyd. now according to a scoop from our friends over at axios, expert and a brand-new book will say that trump sitting in the oval office asked esper about the demonstrators saying this, quote, can't you just shoot them? just shoot them in the legs or something, end quote? we should tell you right now, those of us at nbc have not read the book yet that a representative for the publisher confirms that passage and asked for axios reports. the group was reviewed in whole or in part by three dozen four-star generals, senior

civilians and cabinet members and some of them had witnessed what esper witnessed so they could corroborate it. we're back with carol and frank. >> carol, i know you had incredible reporting on the strain and the extraordinary inappropriateness of donald trump, but i hadn't seen this reporting that he wanted protesters shot in the leg from a -- not high level, but the most senior defense official at the time before. your thoughts? >> nor had i, and i'll say, nicole, that i know from our reporting mine and phil ruckers reporting about esper's experience with donald trump on that day and for the three days before and for the six monthses after was a terrifying experience for him. i don't mean he was cowering in a corner at all. he was shocked, jaw on the floor shocked at what the president wanted him to do at any given

moment and on this particular day when trump was so angry as george floyd protesters were flooding into washington, d.c., coming to the white house to protest and demand that their government, that the executive branch that their president do something about the murder at police hands of an unarmed individual, their protests, very forceful, very aggressive at least on that weekend beginning on friday had infuriated -- had infuriated the president by the 1st of june, and he was like a lion roaring on that monday into esper's face, into the joint chief mark milley's face, into the face of his attorney general bill barr at the top of his lungs saying we have got to get tough and medieval on these people, and now we know from mark esper's own memoir out

litigated with the department of defense and reviewed by his fellow generals, now we know that the president had urged him to shoot the protesters. esper says, i think, quite rightly, that the good news is it was an easy decision and his answer to trump was no. it was absolutely no, but the bad news for trump was, forgive me -- the bad news for esper was that trump was so foaming at the mouth for violence against these anti-violence protesters, that esper had to find a way to talk him down successfully, and that was very hard. very, very hard, indeed. >> you know, and it culminates with the display of mark milley in his fatigues, right, carol leonnig? doesn't that come when he has the -- he goes out there with the bible and does what he does. what is amazing to me is the stains he left on the military

from -- we always examine trump in relative terms. so relatively speaking, it's good that it was easy to say no to shooting american from testers, but it's pretty bad that he dragged the military into this at all. isn't that -- >> i'm not an opinion wruter, but i will si from the perspective of the military both active duty and civilian duty mark esper, this was a horrific series of events from the president and one of them was can we shoot them? the one we reported in our book was can we get the active duty troops out here to fend them off and to have active weapons drawn on these individuals? esper said no to that, as well, but tried to bring national guard in just to give an optical presence and at the end of the day, once mark esper and milley

are without any explanation kind of dragged behind trump through that photo-op, the vicious clearing of peaceful protesters at that point on monday, the clearing of the beautiful park, iconic park outside the white house, after they are dragged behind him both of them come away with nearly identical reaction which is trump played me and this is never going to happen again. >> frank, i want to read a little bit more of what's being reported. this is by cnn, the generals rejected trump's rejections that critics should crack skulls. that's how you're supposed to handle people, trump told his top law enforcement and military officials, crack their schools expect, quote, just shoot them, trump said on multiple occasions. i'm done asking if it's a crime for which donald trump would be

held accountable for. the answer comes gushing in day in and day out, probably not and probably not, but he is the leading figure to be the republican nominee for 2024 and if you agree with the polls he certainly has a shot having a shot, do you think he might hire mark esper or someone who doesn't think it's an easy decision to say no? >> i would be remiss if i didn't point out the obvious which is that many americans are growing very weary of former trump officials who are coming out with books telling us what we should have known back when it was usable. >> the opposite of the tell-all, right? >> tell a little or a lot too late. >> or tell us something we don't know, really, and i hope there is forthcoming with the grand jury or a select committee as they are with their publishers, but let me move on. yes, it's illegal. it's a civil rights violation

over cover of law to use excessive force to shoot people who project -- and it got my attention so much so that i decided to vote an entire column for msnbc daily to this topic which is that the committee members came out and said it might be time to revisit the insurrection act. it dates back to 1807 and we have not revisited the insurrection act, and so what do we read into that? we better pay attention if the select committee is saying they have a problem with the insurrection act? what does that do? it allows the president and the president only to use active duty military troops and actively deployed national guard, armed troops to put down an insurrection. we have a great definition of insurrection law and we have no definition of the parameters of a single u.s. president and what they can do and how long they can do it to suppress an

insurrection. we have a war powers act so if we use u.s. troops abroad, we have to go to congress, and there are time limits before congress has to weigh in and they can stop it, but guess what? if a single president wants to go to war against u.s. people and there is no requirement or timeframe for congress to be notified and to stop it. i do agree that we need to visit the insurrection act. the problem is who will review it and revisit it when this congress won't touch it in terms of an authoritarian president and scenario? >> it's a good thing to always -- as carol says we sometimes lose the tries staring at the tallest trees in the forest. it's a good chance to always ask when we have a chance to talk to the 1/6 committee members. thank you both so much for end? ing time with us today. grateful for your insights.

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mission many, many harrowing weeks in the making. what you are watching now is video of the evacuations that were filmed by the battalion over the weekend and nbc news has not been able to verify the footage and the footage does back up reporting about the conditions faced by the ukrainians who have been left behind who were alive in the eastern city of mariupol. officials believe up to 1,000 people have been sheltering in the plant which continues to come under attack by russian troops. more than 100 sifrlians evacuated a riefred in zaporizhzhia earlier today. it is unclear whether hundreds more sifrlians and soldiers will be able to get out as talks between russia and ukraine appear to be even more fraught today. amid all this tension, house speaker nancy pelosi led a small democratic delegation on a surprise visit to kyiv over the weekend reaffirming the united

states support for ukraine. let's bring in our coverage, calipery, also ben rhodes, former deputy security adviser to president obama and also an m success nbc contributor. tell me the impact and i know the message to the ukrainians is kyiv is safe. come to kyiv. tell me the impact of having what aims to the most senior u.s. official to visit kyiv since the war began. >> look, i think that helps. i think that helps with the messaging that kyiv is generally safe. we did have air strikes more than 72 hours and 42 hours by nancy pelosi which rattled folks here because it had been ten days since we had the air strikes and you have the symbolic nature of the visit and the legitimate need that the ukrainian government has for weapons. it was interesting on the post-press conferences that we had in poland after these individuals had left the country. there was specific talk about exactly the kind of weapons that were here in ukraine. for example, more talk about

those howitzers. all of this, nicole, really is the backdrop for mariupol, right? mariupol has become the center of attention here in ukraine and has become the center of attention in the world because of this conflict and what we are seeing in the evacuation of these civilians is not just, i think, in many ways to reinforce what the ukrainian government was saying about these weapons and we're starting to hear the stories of how people are surviving and how people are tapping into the radiators to get water and how children are running out in the rain to find water and coming under shelling. i say all of this as a way of talking about we're going to lose these stories. if the russians take this steel plant, and we should say our colleague kelly cobiella is saying there are 100,000 civilians still embedded in the city, if they kill everyone in the city we will lose the stories of survival. we will lose the eyewitness reports of atrocities. it is something that the government is worried about and

they're talking more and more about crematoriums that the russians are burning bodies in the streets. it goes to show you that people ared with abouted atrocities and it is not just mariupol. kharkiv, we saw fresh shelling today, the least three people killed and more wounded. in odesa, was there a 13-year-old child and wounding others. a meeting in which the president of ukraine very appreciative the symbolic nature of the have saids is being seen around the world and this is the highest ranking politician and asked again for more weapons and we've had $33 billion of aid has come into the country, but it is not enough. there are more and more explosions now on the russian side of the border. there have been a series of explosions in belgorod that russians use to resupply their lines and we have seen the fuel supply in this country, and so

now in the capital here, while again, it is safe there are fuel lines here. fuel is becoming harder and harder to get and it is harder to limit what they can do, so this war is dragging on. it doesn't seem that there is any letup and the violence continue, nicole. >> because cal isn't just the best of the best of nbc, but he's also poetic here. he was describing that line from hamilton, who lives, who dies and who tells the story? this is essential to president zelenskyy's government and literally who lives and who dies will shape whether or not this story of the atrocities is told at a time when he has an ask on the table to this white house that they designate russia as a state sponsor of terror. jim hines reportsed that nancy policy is very open and sees reason and cause for that. i wonder your thoughts on her trip and on that designation of russia as the state sponsor of

terror. >> well, i think the first thing i would add to what cal said which i tell everyone about the trip is we're moving interest a new phase of this war where the ukrainian government and western allies are preparing for a long haul here. so when you look at the $33 billion package that was discussed, that's multi-month sustainment of ukrainian forces as well as trying to get them and things like heavy weapons and howitzers can go on offense and get to a protracted combat, and when you have them trying to phase off gas over months, we're thinking six months to a year in part because of the nature of the funding and in part because when russia is making deals and then shelling civilians that are trying to get out under those evacuation deals, how will you ever trust these people to sign a peace deal? that's clearly understand happening in the near future. my big takeaway is that we're in

for a long-term haul here and the state sponsor of terrorism resignation is on the table. we've designated states, nicole, for much less than what russia is doing in terms of sponsorship. with russia it's not just military, and it's the paramilitary proxies that they use, as well. if we do take this step it is another signal that the remaining ties in the united states are being cut. >> it is so interesting how events sort of catch up with everything that zelenskyy asked for in tragic ways. very, very quickly, i want to ask you about life on the ground because i've heard sort of anecdotally some of what you're reporting, cal, about fuel shortages. i understand from u.s. government sources that zelenskyy can fund his government and the ngos are feeding large numbers of ukrainians and i want to ask you and understand the needs at this hour and i'll ask both of you to stick around through a quick break. we'll be right back with calipery and ben rhodes. don't go anywhere. hodes. don't go anywhere.

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do not be bully bid bullies. if they're making threats, you cannot back down. that's my view of it. that you -- we're there for the fight. and you cannot -- you cannot fold to a bully. our conversation with president zelenskyy was no surprise, but not only his courage and his leadership but his detailed knowledge of every subject we brought up.

>> that was house speaker nancy pelosi right on the heels of her meeting with ukrainian president zelenskyy in kyiv over the weekend. speaker pelosi and her colleagues are urging ukraine there not to back down in the face of bullies like russia. we're back with cal perry and ben rhodes. i think they're on the same page. cal perry, there's no backing down, and anything i understand about president zelenskyy, but i have come to understand some of what i think you've been trying to bring to us now for months, which is this real need that, dying of things other than the war is a reality there. the fuel shortages. i understand there's real struggle to fund basic government services and the ngos are doing a whole lot. tell me what the needs are in ukraine right now. >> so there's an immediate need partner people who have been displaced, food, water, access to medical supplies, access to doctors is really hard because so many people have gone to the front or left the country.

but i want our viewers to try to understand that the suburbs of kyiv have been destroyed by an invasion, an invading army that left with them unexploded ordinances, grenades, mortars, burned-out tanks, destruction on a scale that i have never seen in my life and i covered the war in iran for years, the war in lebanon, georgia. this is my second russian war. i've never seen destruction like this. and what it's left behind are family members who have lost loved ones, and there's going to be, for decades in this country, a generation that hates russia, that hates everything russian, because their lives were forever altered and destroyed by this war, and we haven't even started talking about the 5 million people who left ukraine, whose families will now be living in poland or across europe or maybe make it to the u.s. and those families will forever have their identities changed. we haven't even discussed the people, for example, who are on the front in mariupol, who this conversation would be lost on

because they can't find water. they can't find food. and they're being shot at. it gives you, i hope, an idea of how this country will forever be different and nancy pelosi was here this weekend. will she be visiting a year from now? i don't know. the international community moves on from these wars. this one's a little bit more unique. this is a fledgling democracy, i'm a journalist, okay, so in order for my job to function, it has to function inside a democracy. this is something unique for the united states. that may last. but the long-term commitment of international aid organizations, of foreign countries that are willing to rebuild this country, history has shown us that that sometimes wanes, but again, the hatred and the lives of these -- of a generation, i mean, i saw a young boy, like, 8, 9 years old, go to this tent in bucha at the end of last week to try to find his father. that boy's life will forever be different and there's not any amount of international aid that will change what he's been through and who he's going to be for the rest of his life. >> it is so hard to hear that if

you've got kids of your own, but i think cal perry's absolutely right, and the gift of bringing these stories to us and getting all of our attention and making us care is really important to president zelenskyy. it's really important to president biden, who as you said, ben rhodes, is doing big, huge, long-range things. i mean, president biden seems to see this the way president zelenskyy does. do you agree? >> yeah. and i think there's another aspect to documenting war crimes in addition to kind of validating the dignity and importance of every life that is lost and trying to hold russia to account at some point for this. in many ways, i think we've all had a sense this war is about bigger things than even just the future of ukraine. it's obviously about whether or not democracy is going to survive. it's also, though, about whether or not truth and reality matters. the only pretext, the only basis upon which vladimir putin can prosecute this war is on a giant pyramid of lies about

denazification, about ukrainian aggression. he's gaslighting the world, and you have to fight that also with the truth. and part of what cal is talking about is, yes, the international community has a tendency sometimes to look away when time goes on, but if you continue to confront people with the reality of what russian aggression looks like in ukraine, it is harder for them to look away. and i think that's what president zelenskyy has tapped into. i think you see that mindset in president biden when he says, extemporaneously, often, putin is a war criminal. clearly there's a desire to not let the people around the world look away from what's happening in ukraine, and keep in mind, nicole, there are a lot of countries sitting on the fence. europe and the united states and canada and japan, a few other countries, have been united in support of ukraine. most everybody else has kind of sat this one out, and the more you try to confront them with the reality of what russia's vision for how the world should operate looks like, the harder it is, i think, for those countries to sit on the fence, and the more pressure there is, by the way, on governments in

europe to stop buying the gas that is financing the russian war machine, and you see european governments responding to that pressure. absent the reporting people like cal are doing on the ground, i don't think we'd be where we are with sanctions because those leaders of democracies are responding to bottom-up pressure and that is, frankly, one of the biggest tools in president zelenskyy's arsenal, and that's why he's dedicating so much time to it. >> and just to close the loop, i mean, the -- your points about truth and reality, ben, are so important. that will be the enduring test. you know, who is going to tell the truth about what happened there, about what russia did there, and that's where it's likely to re-enter our politics in a couple of years. cal perry and ben rhodes, two of the best of the best, thank you both for your time and expertise. when we come back, the threat democracy that comes from a mainstream media outlet in america feeding the fringiest and most extreme ideology night after night after night to its loyal viewers. the reporter on that wide-ranging investigation is next. reporter othn at

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we are approaching a solemn anniversary this week, and it is an anniversary of a violent terrorist attack on the capitol where we saw the men and women of law enforcement demonstrate incredible courage. >> the way i phrased things yesterday, it was sloppy, and it was frankly dumb. >> i don't buy that. whoa, whoa, whoa. i don't buy that. i've known you a long time, since before you went to the senate. you were a supreme court contender. you take words as seriously as any man who's ever served in the senate and every word -- i don't believe you use that had accidentally. i just don't. >> so, tucker, as a result of my sloppy phrasing, it's caused a lot of people to misunderstand what i meant. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. when ted cruz had the most fleeting moment of clarity and

conviction and truth seeing and seeking, and saw fit to call out the january 6th insurrection, the attack, for what it was, a terrorist attack on the capitol, you saw right there. the very next day, he had to go on fox news and grovel, walk back his own words to tucker carlson, all because the man he was apologizing there, too, tucker carlson, had called him out for them. it's a moment, and we started with it, because it fully capturing the entire ethos of the current republican party. completely beholden to one man and one television network that on a daily and nightly basis spreads fear, xenophobia, and devotion to donald trump. carlson's outsized influence on this country and our current political climate is the focus of some extraordinary new blockbuster reporting by our friend, nick confessore, in "the new york times," exploring tucker carlson's rise to become the host of the highest rated cable show on tv. and to report out how he reached

this perch by stoking white fear and grievance. from that "times" report, "mr. carlson has constructed what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news, and also, by some measures, the most successful. though he frequently declares himself an enemy of prejudice, quote, we don't judge them by group, and we don't judge them on their race, carlson explained to an interviewer a few weeks before accusing impoverished immigrants of making america dirty. his show teaches loathing and fear night after night, hour-by-hour. carlson warns his viewers that they inhabit a civilization under siege by violent black lives matter protesters in american cities, by diseased migrants from south of the border, by refugees importing alien cultures, and by tech companies and cultural elites who will silence them or label them racist if they complain." the "times'" look at carlson's show is an analytical one, the result of watching and reading

transcripts of 1,150 episodes of "tucker carlson tonight." every show carlson has hosted since the program began through 2021 and tabulating the topics, the guests, the trends and the themes across those five years. but when it comes to the "times'" conclusions, don't take their word for it. take tucker carlson's. here is the "times" compilation of how carlson frames nearly all his topics, telling his viewers that the, quote, ruling class threatens everything they believe in. >> why are people who have taxpayer-funded body guards demanding that the rest of us disarm immediately? people in charge are suddenly for weed. is it because they're super cool? or is there some other reason they might want a passive population? >> you don't care about the actual environment. they care about controlling the rest of us. in a single day last month, we watched, for example, our entire professional class, dutifully change their twitter avatars to

mask up to the now mandatory ukrainian flag. ruling class is obsessed with denying biology. the point of the exercise is to humiliate the rest of us by forcing us to obey transparently absurd orders. the point is to disarm you, strip you of your autonomy, your power, your right of self-defense. >> it goes way beyond the ruling class wanting power and control, according to carlson. he appeals to the majority white fox news audience, saying that the ruling class's, quote, obsession with race is discriminatory against them. him and his viewers. watch. >> so, anti-white racism is exploding across the country. white men, they're the problem. they hate white men more than they hate global warming. those white men, raytheon said, must, quote, step aside for minorities. businesses are receiving favorable treatment based solely on the skin color of their owners. the unified school district is

cutting funding for a school having too many white people. as soon as we get rid of all these white men, everything will be great. white backlash, white resistance, white, white, white, meaning evil, cruel, and bigoted. so, shut up, white man. >> it's where we start the hour with go of the "times" reporters who worked on this incredible piece of reporting, the aforementioned nick confessore, nbc political analyst and karen is here, "new york times" graphic editor. karen, thank you so much for being part of this. we'll start here at the table, but the story comes to life once you start clicking on all of those elements. i want to bring you in on that. but nick, first, tell me your conclusion after, you know, and i have to sort of confess to something. i mean, i don't watch it every night, but when there's a flash point, and it's brought to my attention, i go watch it, and i'm shocked at how committed to polarizing the country at every heated moment he is, but this is

totally different. this is a -- an objective analysis of every show he's done. tell me what you found. >> look, his skill is to turn all the events that are happening in the news, it doesn't matter what it is, pot legalization, russia, of course, immigration, everything is part of this conspiracy by a cabal of elites who not only -- >> who are they? >> it's democrats. it's aoc. it's joe biden. it's anthony fauci, chelsea clinton. it's colin kaepernick. it's almost anybody who takes a position that he doesn't like. they are all in on it. and what's different about him from someone like rush limbaugh who told jokes about feminazis and told jokes, on tucker's show, everything is terrible, they're out to get you, they want to destroy you. >> and he says, you. he also addresses his audience, you, us, we, them, they. he is -- so it's also rhetorical. >> it's you/they, you/they, every night. the repetition is part of the

technique. and as well as repetition of the themes. you've heard this before, replacement theory. he got into hot water in april for using this theory which comes from the far right, from anti-semites, from racists, who say that, again, there is a plot in america and europe to replace people like you and me with people from the third world, as they call it, people who will be pliant voters so they can stay in power and rule. that's not just saying that we should have fewer immigrants in the country or that the border isn't secure enough. that's beyond that. that is a conspiracy theory ripped directly from obscure websites on the far right, and he's advanced that idea in 400 episodes as karen and her colleague showed in their analysis. >> when you say far right, just define far right here. are you talking about newsmax? are you talking about something that's more closely aligned with militia groups? what is far right? >> i'm talking about storm front and daily stormer. >> these are white supremacists.

>> and a nativist site that is also a hub for white nationalism, which admits that it is. and these sites watch his show and praise it and say he is the best messenger they've ever had for their ideas. he gives their ideas credibility that they can't, with their small and marginal audiences. >> i want to put up some of the other graphic elements. first, let me say that tucker carlson responded to your reporting. justin wells, a senior executive producer said, quote, tucker carlson programming embraces diversity of thought and presents various points of view in an industry where contrarian thought and the search for truth are often ignored. there's an incredible graphic that proves the opposite. these are his guests over the years, and even the people that he has on has changed. and you depict it graphically by showing, i think, with dots. explain what this is showing us. >> exactly.

so, in the beginning years of the show, he frequently had on at least one or two guests who would disagree with him and there was more of a healthy debate, but as time has gone on, he has just basically, you know, only has people on the show who agree with him and amplify his message, and as nick's reporting shows, some of that is because liberals have decided that they aren't going to be on the show, but most of it was -- seems like a programming strategy. >> and a choice. i want to show more of what you guys capture in his own words, because it's the most powerful thing that you report out. this is the one about the ruling class not caring about you. >> they care more about identity politics than they care about your life. they care more about preventing a border wall than they do about raising the wages of american

workers. they care more about putting roger stone in prison than about punishing looters and arsonists. they care far more about foreigners than about their own people. they seem to care more about venezuela than they care about this country. they care about afghans far more than they care about you. they don't care about you and they're saying that as clearly as they possibly can. they don't care about your kids and they really don't care about your grandkids. >> this animosity toward anyone, toward any immigrant, seems to defy any american's history. we've all come from somewhere else. was this a sort of bug that became a feature? did you see an evolution on this as well? or was this always part of the schtick that just became a mission? tell me the sort of fine tuning of the anti-immigrant, anti-asylum seeker messaging. >> sure. yeah. so, when we first started going through the shows, we had no idea what we were going to find. we knew that there were anecdotal examples that other news organizations had reported

on where tucker would say something outrageous and everybody would talk about it for a little while. but we found really quickly that there was this persistent message, night after night after night, and all around the narrative that there is this ruling class, like you said, that want to destroy you. one of the ways they're going to destroy you, the mostly white viewer of fox news, is through replacement, and the replacement happens in a variety of different ways. it happens either through immigration. it happens through anti-white discrimination. and as well as anti-men or, you know, he has a theory that feminism and gender nonconformity are eventually going to destroy men, which will destroy civilization. so, we noticed this persistent theme throughout all the shows, but we also noticed that it got

much darker as time went on, as his show evolved to essentially just be an echo chamber of tucker's point of view. >> and i think, nick, i want to show one more clip and then i want to get into sort of why this matters. i mean, when you look at the stain that donald trump left on the office of the presidency, the other sort of side of the coin is the mark that tucker carlson leaves every night on the dialogue and the debate, and what he projects on to democrats and on to joe biden, specifically, are not unrelated from the conspiracies about the election. that undergird a lot of the sort of trump base still believing that 2020 wasn't a free and fair election. let me play this. this sort of bridges his replacement theory all the way to election manipulation with the importing of the other. watch. >> this is how radical demographic change happens. i don't want to live in a country that looks nothing like

the country i grew up in. they can embrace the issues the middle class cares about or they can import an entirely new electorate from the third world. democrats know if they import enough new voters they'll be able to run the country forever. dramatic demographic change means many americans don't recognize where they grew up. a long-term agenda of refugee resettlement is to bring in future democratic voters. illegal immigrants are the key to their power. the point is to import as many new democratic voters as possible. the whole point of their immigration policy is to ensure political control, replace the population. this policy is called the great replacement, the replacement of legacy americans with more obedient people from far-away countries. >> it's too offensive to repeat, but i'm going to do it anyway. the replacement of legacy americans who, from listening and reading all this reporting, is people like him, white americans, right, with more obedient people from far-away countries is not unrelated to the conspiracy theories that undergird this sort of cracking

of democracy around january 6th. talk about his role in that. >> look, and that term, right, that he used, legacy americans, comes from a crackpot website. it didn't exist in mainstream media until last fall when he picked it up. it's a great example of him importing. he has done the same thing on the story of january 6th that he has done about the debate about race and power more broadly. he has said that the people that are obviously more in power or have more power in american society, who are broadly speaking white people, the underclass, the ones being oppressed. >> by whom? >> by the elite. >> by michael finone and officer gonell? >> he's inverted the narrative. those people weren't aggressors, they were victims, they were entrapped by law enforcement, they had reasonable grievances and fears about the election results which tucker carlson did his best to fan for weeks and weeks by airing conspiracy theories, unproven allegation,

things that had been debunked in court, and then he says, it's not my fault. it's the elites' fault for not listening to them and giving them a chance. these poor people, they're unfastable, he says, so they don't have any sympathy for them. so instead seeing them as people who rushed into the building, hit officers, broke in, stole things, caused damage, and tried to disrupt an election, they're actually the victims on his show, in his narrative. he has hit that theme in almost half of the episodes of his show in 2021. >> what is the -- does everyone at fox like him and agree with him? >> it doesn't really matter. what fox is really good at is getting the most people to watch the shows. they're really good. >> fair enough. >> they're a machine. >> ratings machine. >> they're sophisticated. >> but at what cost? chris wallace left. does that not bother anybody? does no one prefer to be associated with chris wallace's form of television than tucker carlson's? >> part of our story delves into

this. what you saw during the trump era was a low-grade civil war at fox where allies and functionaries, the primetime people at fox, were taking over and influencing the news divisions. in the old days, if you were someone who went on to be analyzing the news of the day on a dayside show, you'd do news of the day and then all of a sudden, you're being asked to comment on something that tucker carlson or sean hannity said the night before. back door way of injecting higher-rating primetime content into dayside, by giving less airtime overall to their own reporters. and they're giving less airtime to people who are either anti-trump conservatives or middle of the road or liberals. it's not to say fox doesn't do journalism. they have people in ukraine at great risk. they've covered a lot of big stories. >> the pentagon. >> but they really are changing the emphasis. they're making their dayside shows more and more like primetime because that is what fox does best as their chief executive says. >> before we lose you, karen, i want to ask you what it was like

for you to watch all these hours of tucker carlson's show. >> it was revealing in a way that i can't even describe. i mean, i had no idea. i had not watched the show before this project, and once i did, i realized that what we wanted to do would create -- would be to create an immersive experience so that the people who read "the new york times," who most likely don't watch the show on a regular basis, could feel what it's like, because i think it's easy to dismiss -- to dismiss what he is saying as, you know, just another cable tv news host, but he's way more powerful and the content is way more dangerous than i think what

anybody realizes unless you're watching the show on a daily basis. >> yeah, and i mean, what the -- what the graphic elements of the piece capture -- and i do try to watch. i do try to watch as much of it as i can. sometimes it makes my blood boil, but as i said, i only turn to it on big news events. what the reporting does, it's beyond dispute and debate what happens there every single night and what his program -- and it's the you and me and them is so thoroughly recorded and reported. it's really an incredible piece of reporting. karen, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. nick sticks around. when we come back, we'll broaden to conversation to look at what happens when the disinformation spread by tucker carlson so effectively, as well as his colleagues at fox news, enters the political bloodstream in this country. our friend, steve schmidt, will be back and he will be our next guest. plus, what today's move by the january 6th committee requesting information from three republican members of congress tells us about where

their investigation is heading. we'll talk with a member of the committee later in our program. and trevor noah's powerful message about the freedom of the press to speak truth to power at a time when doing so in russia about the war raging in ukraine can land you in prison or worse. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere.

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they're all here. vaccinated and boosted. all of them. >> it was a moment. that was from the correspondents' dinner saturday night. president joe biden calling out the television network for the last two years has railed against vaccine mandates at the white house correspondents' dinner. attendees laughed. it raises this very serious issue of a double life, the hypocrisy of being a fox news employee or anchor or correspondent. believing and doing one thing, the truth, and then telling their viewers to do the opposite. fox has become a fervent purveyor of disinformation as amplified in the post-trump era from covid vaccine mandates to critical race theory to the results of the 2020 presidential

election, fox viewers are fed lies that can result in harmful consequences to them as well as our democracy. in nick's incredible body of reporting on tucker carlson in "the new york times," there was this interesting statistic. quote, much of carlson's vast audience drew in some of the hundreds who would go on to attack the capitol. at least eight people who face criminal charges commented on carlson's official facebook page in the preceding months according to an analysis of since deleted facebook accounts conducted by the "times." joining our conversation, steve schmidt. nick is still here. steve, i thought of you when i saw this reporting starting to get pushed out by nick and the "times" over the weekend. and i know it's something that we've felt as we've watched sort of fox news go from being, you know, more sympathetic and sort of the 2004, 2008 presidential elections in which we were becoming purveyors of

disinformation. what'd you think of the reporting? >> i think the reporting is extremely important, and it pairs with another extremely important story, which is in "vanity fair." that talks about jd vance and talks about this new right movement. when i read the story, i think what stands out to me is what is obvious is not always known, and secondly, perspective matters. you can use the google earth map to look at your backyard from 20 feet up and see your barbecue in a very fuzzy picture, or you can look at your backyard from 200 miles out in outer space. the view is the same. the perspective is different. and so what all of this is, is a coherent, organized ideology, and that ideology has a name. it's called fascism.

the argument that tucker carlson is making, and that jd vance and others is making, is this. that american freedom, that american culture, and that in order for it to be saved, we have to deal with the problem of american democracy. and the great flaw in american democracy, according to them, is that it treats everyone equally. and because it treats everyone equally, his vote, their vote, a group vote, a group of people that look alike to them, white people who have a similar world view, their vote, their power in their view is lessened. and so, therefore, democracy becomes the opposite of freedom because freedom cannot be something where they and people who are less than them are

treated equally. this philosophy got 100 million people killed, at least, in the middle of the 20th century. and so everybody would have understood what this was who was alive in those moments. and when you see this in totality, the embrace of replacement theory, which is steeped in racial scientific theory, which goes back to the middle of the 19th century, when a french nobleman introduced a ranking of whose race was the smartest, and introduced into the lexicon a word that previously hadn't existed. that word was "aryan." and over the next 70 years, the use of that word would be picked up by an obscure political party in germany that was a far-right party that called itself national socialists.

these people call themselves national conservatives. it is teeming with extremism. it is dangerous. this is a fear-based ideology that is meant to make people hate each other. and therefore, it is un-american. it is contrary to the american idea and ideal as we understand it, which is at long last, we stand at the edge of a moment when all people of all races and all religion and all ethnicity stand equally in this land before the law. that is what they are attacking. and that is what they hate. >> steve, why is it so popular? >> it's popular because fear works. because we live in a time of profound change. we know, for example, that a dozen years into staring at a screen that it's driven a lot of unhappiness in the society. we know that the ceo of facebook envisions a future where there

will be a mask on people's heads and we live in a cartoon world. we know that a million people were wiped out by opioids by the sackler family, and it was discovered as if columbus discovered america for most of the people that live on both coasts. the fundamental dividing line in american politics is the line that separates americans with a college degree from americans who have a high school diploma, and the elites in the country, a lot of them, speak to and talk to people with a lot of contempt, and so this message is resonant. lastly, there's something in the national character, and what's present in the national character is this allergy around being told what to do. so, when you combine the contempt, when you combine the fact that people feel unseen and unheard, they are ripe for a message around what they are

angry about. they are susceptible to the lie because the lie is able to take root when people lose faith. when they lose belief that tomorrow can be better. so in the absence of better, in the absence of an ability to see something that unites, people break into groups. they look at the world through individual eyes, through the eyes of takers and what they say is that it's my group or their group, and what's happened in american politics is we have most americans voting to protect themselves from politicians that they fear, or we have groups and politicians running to punish half the country that they don't agree with. to punish the people that dissent from how they see the world. and this -- all of it, together, fed by a media that drives a lot of conflict, that covers

politics like it's a cage match, like it's an mma fight, all of it has taken us to this moment, and so the choice is ahead, where does the country go? and what the country's going to have to decide is if it wants to live in a world where fear and division is able to take root? i'll just tell you what happens at the end of all of this. after you dehumanize everybody, anne applebaum wrote about this in the third essential story of the month. that's when the killing starts, and we can watch that play out in ukraine. >> to steve's point, even within fox news, no one suggests that what he does is even truth-adjacent. this is from your story. part one. accuracy isn't the point on tucker carlson tonight. on the air, carlson piles up narrative confirming falsehoods and misleading statements so rapidly about george floyd's death, white supremacists who took part in the january 6th

riot, falling testosterone levels in men, covid vaccines, the texas power grid and more that the "washington post" media critic has made a sideline of cataloging them. though carlson claims his show to be the sworn enemy of lying, fox's lawyers acknowledged in 2020 in a lawsuit accusing the host of slander that, quote, spirited debate on talk show programs does not lend itself well to statements of actual fact. that's another way of saying tucker carlson lies his booty off or his tanned testicles. >> you could fact check that show all day and not do anything else. and this is the defense that fox's own lawyers offered in a slander lawsuit against him. more importantly than that, employees of fox, executives of fox have warned fox, for years, since that show went on the air, that he was borrowing content from odious and racist sources on the far right, from the

cesspool of the interpret, and they let him keep doing it. >> why? >> because it makes them a lot of money. that show has brought in more ad revenue on an annual basis than any other show at fox since 2018, despite the ad boycotts, expect reason is, the audience is really big, and when the audience is that big, someone's going to want a piece of it for their herbal supplements or their pillows. >> oh, wow. oh, wow. you've changed the conversation with this reporting. thank you so much, nick confessore, for being here to talk about it. steve schmidt, thank you, my friend, for coming back and spending time with us. when we come back, the january 6th committee is requesting information from three republican house members with more likely to come. committee member pete aguilar will be our guest. o come committemee mber pete aguilar will be our guest. your type ? once-weekly ozempic® can help. ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪ ♪ oh, oh, oh ♪ ozempic® is proven to lower a1c. most people who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. and you may lose weight.

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a big milestone today for the january 6th committee expected to be just the first of its kind in this stage of the investigation. gathering all the evidence they can to add to already explosive findings that we'll all hear for the very first time in upcoming public hearings. the panel sent letters to three republican lawmakers today requesting by may 9th, that is next monday, their cooperation and the relevant information they know about what went down before and during the january 6th insurrection. so, among that list, there's mo brooks, who has since the insurrection, said trump asked him to rescind the election of 2020, rescind was his word. ronny jackson, one-time doctor

to donald trump, whose critical data, a far-right militia group was apparently talking amongst themselves about working to protect. and congressman andy biggs, for his participation in a december white house planning meeting. a rally organizer saying that he, the rally organizer, and congressman biggs, along with two other house members, came up with the whole idea of bringing protesters to washington and white house staff identified biggs as a potential participant in seeking trump pardons after january 6th. the committee purposefully, publicly, deliberately calling on and calling out these three congressmen to, quote, provide answers to the american people about that day and fulfill their patriotic duty. joining us now, house january 6th select committee member congressman pete aguilar of california. first, the letters always seem to balance the committee's desire to hold back as much evidence as you can for the public and deliberately public

phase, but there's always something in here that we as the public see for the very first time and i think you might know where i'm going here, these texts about ronny jackson. tell me the significance of what are communications among oath keepers to find him, protect him, and guard what is described in the text as, quote, critical data. >> well, i think he has a responsibility to tell us what critical data he was holding. either ronny jackson or people near ronny jackson, felt that he needed to be protected, and so we feel that that was all based on firsthand discussions with individuals and participants or, in that case, the data spoke for itself, and so we feel that to uphold his constitutional duty, he has an obligation to come talk with us about what those text messages mean. these are individuals this organization and others like it, these individuals have already

pled to sedition in a few cases, and so this is something that is incredibly big, and it's important to get to the truth. >> so, these are the questions that you have in the letter to ronny jackson, and you make that point in the letter. it says this. as you likely know, from public disclosures, individuals in these groups have been charged with seditious conspiracy. several of these individuals are alleged to have plotted the violent overthrow of the u.s. and allegedly staged weapons at a location near d.c. for the purpose, it is evident from the exchange above that the individuals believed the violence in the capitol would threaten the lives and safety of members of congress and the exchanges above raise specific questions for you. why would these individuals have an interest in your specific location? why would they believe you have critical data to protect? why would they direct their members to protect your personal safety? then this one. with whom did you speak by cell phone that day? this one piqued our interest.

do you have data on which ronny jackson's number shows up on the other end? is that why you'd like him to answer for his calls? >> we'll let the letter speak for itself. but we have received ample amounts of data. we continue to receive data in this investigative stage, but everything right now leads to these letters being released. and this isn't boilerplate language, to your point. these are very specific questions that we feel need to be addressed. january 6th was a violent assault on democracy, not just an attack on the capitol, and in order to ensure that this doesn't happen again, and to seek the truth and the facts about the circumstances that led to january 5th and 6th, then we're going to need to have these questions answered, and if anyone takes an oath of office, like we all do, then they should have a responsibility to answer these questions. >> the letters, at least in my

view, and i have studied all these letters, including the ones for ali alexander and the other insurrectionists and violent extremists, come the closest to putting the question into the public arena about coordination between sitting house republican members and the extremists themselves. is that a fair analysis of the questions you're asking? >> it's a fair analysis to say that we continue to seek the truth. that's what we have been tasked to do is to seek the truth and to chase down every lead and to make sure that this doesn't happen again and that's why we will devote a significant time and energy to these public hearings in june, but also talk about legislative solutions to ensure that this doesn't happen again, but clearly, we can't avoid the fact that some of our colleagues were involved and that show up in these text messages. and some of them also have a very minimal relationship with the truth, and so we need to weigh all of that together in

this seek to piece this puzzle in a way that we can explain to the american public. >> in the letter to congressman andy biggs, there's reference to ellie alexander, who is reported to be cooperating with doj, he's also spent time with you and your committee, and i want to read this part of the letter about him. it says, second, we are aware that ali alexander has stated publicly that he, along with you, this is to congressman andy biggs, and two other house members, came up with the idea to bring protesters to washington on january 6th for the count of electoral votes. ali alexander is an early and aggressive proponent of the stop the steal movement who called for violence before january 6th. we would like to understand precisely what you knew before the violence on january 6th about the purposes, planning, and expectations for the march on the capitol. again, it's the most explicit -- the line of questioning that have been made public have been to either premeditation or foreknowledge that the events of january 6th would turn violent.

do you have evidence that republican members knew that it would be violent? >> we have evidence that individuals knew that it was going to be violent. i'll just say that. but specific to mr. biggs, we also put in the letter that he was involved in some of the state pressure campaign that was placed on arizona officials as well as sitting in the white house when some of the planning activities on the pence pressure campaign were unfolding. so, those are items that we feel need to be addressed and that he should come and share what he knows about the events that led up to january 6th with the committee. >> a lot of the questions that we on the outside, and we don't know everything that you know, obviously, by design, have been around criminal referral for doj, and i think a lot of the questioning has been around whether you would amass evidence for referral for donald trump.

i guess what i want to ask you is, is it also an active discussion whether or not to refer republican members of congress -- a criminal referral for them to doj? >> right now, we are just focused on finding the facts and leading up to our public hearings in june, but every member of this committee has an eye toward accountability. we want to ensure that individuals who are responsible for the planning of january 6th are held accountable, and so we feel that the best way we can do that is to do our job and to find the facts, lay them out, and to show the american public exactly what transpired. that's what we are focused on. there may be other conversations that the committee has at that point, but right now, in this planning stage, leading up to the june public hearings, that's what we're focused on. >> incredible new peeks into your probe in these letters. thank you so much, congressman pete aguilar, for taking time to talk to us about them.

we're grateful. still ahead for us, what happens to people in russia who tell the truth about vladimir putin's war in ukraine. that's next. ladimir putin's war in ukraine that's next.

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any questions, if they had basically what you have, would they be using it in the same way that you do? ask yourself that question every day. because you have one of the most important roles in the world. >> it's officially the season of trevor noah. that was trevor noah at the white house correspondents dinner over the weekend on the basic but precious freedoms that all of us journalists in the u.s. to speak truth, speak truth to power without putting our live osar jobs on the lined. meanwhile, "the new york times," a businessman in russia, oleg tinkov posted criticism of his ware in ukraine, that he says many of his professional contacts agree with, but are afraid to say out loud. as a result, putin threatened to

nationalize his bank and he was forced to sell his part in what he describes as a hostage negotiation. he said he hired body guard after friends with contact in the russian security services told him he should fear for his life and quipped that while he had survived leukemia, maybe the kremlin would kill him. let me ask you about this moment. i've watched it three times. it's such an important message to hear any year, but especially when we're watching folks do this reporting in a country of war and understanding that what happens in russia if you dare to tell the truth is you lose your job and possibly your life. >> this is what russian journalists and people who watch russia have been telling us

about for a while, and i wonder whether we have been listening enough to what's happening inside the country. i think the point trevor noah was making is so important. he's pointing to our responsibility, not just the ask the question, but use the press freedom widely, to make news smarter, to make our questions smarter, to cover the things that matter, that change people's lives and, not get caught up in -- you know what it's like. we get caught up in the silly stuff that we know doesn't have import and lasts for a day or two. what's happened in ukraine has shone a spotlight on what really matters and on the responsibilities we have as citizens but also as journalists to keep doing what we are doing. the ukrainians are living and fighting and dying for that right to protect their democratic freedoms. and i think it's why trevor noah's words were so important.

because if they are doing it, then we have a responsibility at least to think hard about whether we are doing it, too. >> simon schuster you're doing it, and your reporting makes sure no one understands what catty articulated better than president zelenskyy. >> yeah, i -- >> i mean, and he worries about this thing catty's talking about that will lose our attention and move on -- i heard from ukrainian sources. they were afraid we'd cover the slap instead of the war. they have this real desire for journalists to see the world the way trevor noah is urging us to. >> i think so, and when i interviewed president zelenskyy, he was very concerned about, you know, the way that the war is being perceived, the way it's being portrayed, the ability of western journalists to keep the focus on the war and to cover it freely.

you know, one thing i'd say is trevor noah talked about russian journalists, and i think it's worth giving a shout-out to a lot of my dear friends who are russian journalists who have been forced to flee the country since the invasion because the laws imposed to silence them, to silence independent honest reporting about the war -- the laws in russia are so draconian that you can face 15 years in prison for calling the war a war. the other thing i think is important to keep in mind is it wouldn't be nearly as easy, maybe wouldn't be possible, for put ton launch an invasion like this and to maintain a war like this if there was freedom of the press in russia. i think the propaganda machinery that supports the military machinery in russia is so powerful, and putin worked for so many years to put the propaganda machine in place, to

make sure that once a war hick this was under way, he could control the information flows. and he's been able to do that to a pretty shocking degree. i mean, many of the people that i am in touch with in russia don't have a clear picture of what's going on. i think if there was independent reporting of the type that trevor noah was talking about inside russia, it would just be extremely hard, if not impossible for putin to keep this war going and prevent a massive backlash from the russian public. >> it's amazing. you have to wonder if the next phase includes anything different. you know, wars are not static, but what you're describing is almost this inpenetrable information space, and you have to wonder if the death toll penetrates, in a change in the political tectonic plates changes any of that. for now it's not on the horizon. i'm so sorry we didn't have more time. hopefully we can pick this up

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes on this monday. we are grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. happy monday. >> happy monday, nicole. nice to see you. welcome to "the beet", everyone. we begin with breaking news on a very important story. right now we have new reporting, new signs and new evidence that right-wing conservatives across the america are moving much closer to a very long