hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. the fallout of the testimony of white house aide cassidy hutchinson amounted to the stung denunciation of a president's conduct that was frankly, unprecedented in american political history is now roiling trump world, the gop and the entire political landscape as "the washington post" puts it, former president donald trump has had some bad days recently, but perhaps none worse than tuesday when former white house aide cassidy hutchinson delivered the most alarming testimony yet about his behavior during the january 6, 2021 attack on the capitol. her testimony before the house select investigation probably left the president more vul perable legally and ultimately that will be for the department of justice to decide. equally important it threatens to further weaken him politically despite the hold he

has retained on much of the republican base. more republicans will be asking themselves if this is the person they want as their nominee in 2024. taken as a whole, it was devastating in the extreme and for the congressional committee tasked with investigating the most devastating attack on the u.s. capitol in centuries, hutchinson's testimony puts their probe at a crossroads with important new questions to answer, especially about the role of white house counsel pat cipollone and what he told the ex-presind top trump officials on january 6th and in the days before and after. vice chair liz cheney reiterating the panel's call for cipollone to testify. white house counsel pat cipollone had significant concerns. it's time for sip loan toe testify on the record. any concerns he has about the institutional interest of his prior offers are outweighed by the need for his testimony.

punch bowl news is reporting this, quote, the january 6th select committee is likely to subpoena pat cipollone, the white house counsel over donald trump unless he agrees to be deposed or to testify voluntarily. cipollone is just one of many potential witnesses that are in a back and forth negotiation with the panel. this morning an attorney for ginni thomas, the wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas sent a letter to the january 6th committee asking for this, quote, better justification, why mrs. thomas' testimony is relevant to the committee's legislative purpose. as if pressuring state lawmakers to overturn election results in corresponding with the coup architect memo authored john eastman as "the washington post" reported this month is not justification enough. as the committee made clear yesterday the panel faces an ongoing challenge in fending off what appears to be a campaign.

team trump influenced to tamper with witnesses. take a listen to what jamie raskin told our colleagues on "morning joe" on the last-minute hearing with cassidy hutchinson. >> it was of fundamental importance and we wanted to get it out. also my colleague and the vice chair of the committee liz cheney pointed out at the end they were very troubled about different efforts to influence witnesses, witness tampering is a crime in the united states, and we want to make sure that we send a very clear message right now that the committee will not tolerate any form of witness tampering or obstruction of justice. >> all of this comes as there are still more hearings to go. the ones that are ahead of us are focused on the days before january 6th and specifically donald trump's conduct on that day. as deborah riggleman said on

this very broadcast yesterday there is still a treasure trove of information and data that the committee has yet to share with the american people. >> there are a thousand text messages that we know we haven't seen that are privileged. we also know that mark meadows have detailed records because it is a tremendous weapon and with that kind of data in the hands of the committee right now i don't think the american public has seen anything yet. >> oh, wow. >> i actually believe cassidy hutchinson was the bridge to the following -- and i'm being very careful here, a bridge to the following hearings based on the data that the committee still has and pockets. >> we haven't seen anything yet. so what comes next after yesterday's bombshell hearing by the january 6th select committee? it's a question we start with with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. carol leonnig is here from "the

washington post" and msnbc contributor, luke broadwater, former u.s. attorney joyce vance and now an msnbc legal analyst and our friend katty kay is here for the bbc news and msnbc contributors. i want to start with the reporters. let me start with you first, luke. what in your view, for as much as we have known about the process, about who was subpoenaed, about who had sat for taped depositions, for the panel to produce a witness whose combined live testimony and taped depositions punctured the innermost, i don't know if you can call it a sanctum when trump is smashing plates and ketchup on the walls and the innermost circle of the trump west wing, what comes after that? how does the committee keep at this level of disclosures and devastating blows against the

president? >> well, the committee said that cassidy hutchinson's hearing was unique because it wasn't focused on just one of the many avenues they've gone down. she had information about several of them, and if you're paying attention closely to each one of the hearings they're actually suggesting a new, legal avenue that the justice department could pursue. so for instance, you hear about fake electors at one hearing or you hear about the conspiracy to defraud the american people at another, and you hear about now witness tampering at another. so each time they're giving the public and also the justice department new evidence that could be used for an investigation, for a criminal investigation and cassidy hutchinson's testimony was so important because she is the first person inside the white house, not at the justice department, and not at the trump

campaign and not at some state house somewhere, inside the white house to come forward and offer firsthand testimony of what she saw and heard on one of the most historic days in american history, and so, you know, i do expect we'll hear more about things that are happening inside the white house at one of the future hearings especially the effort to get donald trump to call off the mob which we heard from cassidy hutchinson, he had no interest in doing and agreed with the mob, and i do think there's a lot more to come. >> carol leonnig, i want to follow up with you. i asked congresswoman luria if it was to show trump effected for conspiracy to defraud the government or disrupt an official proceeding if that was part of the point and she did

not acknowledge that, but she did not knock that down, and to your eye, knowing so much about this story from your own reporting, what specific areas do you think the committee traveled the most distance yesterday in terms of the evidence cassidy hutchinson's testimony provided us? >> well, a lot. the department of justice -- and there's thehock fac that we learned that are so lurid and the possibility that the president attacked the man he liked very much who protected the president's life, but on the legal side if i'm a prosecutor i would have had my red pen out circling a lot of specific language that was alleged to have come out of the president's mouth. the most important to me as i listened to it with a fresh ear was the notion that the president was essentially

sending a loaded missile to the capital. he knew people were armed, breaking the law. it's illegal to carry a gun on federal property in d.c. and he knew that he had been warned about these individuals, that they were being -- that they weren't coming into a special magnetometer area because they didn't want to have to give up their guns. these were a group of people he insisted should be allowed to continue to carry their weapons and people he knew he wanted to send to the capitol. he planned to do that. i think the second thing that's pretty powerful is even though i had reported for weeks before january 6th was intending to join this illegal march to the capitol that on that day he was emphatic. he was irate. he was going to go to the capitol. he was going to join and essentially foment a group that was heading that way.

keep in mind that these two critical pieces totally separate from the salacious, lurid allegations that have been made in yesterday's testimony opinion these two pieces together kind of wipe out the idea that the president didn't know what might happen at the capitol and that he didn't have any role in trying to egg on violence directing itself straight up pennsylvania avenue to the -- the head of congress. also at his own vice president. >> yeah. i mean, i think this is, you know, katty, once you pick your jaw up off the table and the rest of your face, is we know trump intended to be at the capitol. one of the elements discussed was the speech outside and we also know what he wanted to happen at the capitol. he wanted mike pence to refuse to certify the count. it puts him on top of the fake

electors' conspiracy. there was nothing for trump to do at the capitol other than for his own coronation, and i wonder if it correlates or is at least interesting right next to the seizures of john eastman and mr. clark's devices over the past few days. >> yeah. i mean, that's why when cassidy hutchinson testified that donald trump was asked about vice president mike pence, and the fact that people were threatening to hang him, mark meadows came back and said he thinks they f-ing -- that pence f-ing deserves it. clearly, that was the intention was to get mike pence by any means possible through intimidation, through a huge crowd being there, through disruption of the proceeding not to go ahead with the

congressional certification of the elect results and it's hard to see what else the purpose of that whole rally was. that's why mike pence wases there and that's why donald trump wanted to go there and that's why he wanted whatever it was, 50,000, 80,000 people to go down there even if they were armed and perhaps -- especially if they were armed to try to intimidate the vice president not to certify. i can't imagine what other reason there was for him to be there. the stunning thing out of yesterday's hearing was what carol laid out, these two legal avenues and one was knowing that there were armed people going to the capitol, the witness tampering that liz cheney alluded to at the end of the hearing and when you have fox news, and i -- forgive me, nicole. even fox news saying it was devastating with very little

pushback from the anchors and that they are starting to build a justifiable case for indictment. i thought that was pretty compelling. >> okay, so joyce. this is the reporting, let me ask you to sort of jump in and lay over a legal way for us to look at all that we now know. we all know the violence was not a byproduct. the violence was intended and donald trump knew and communicated out loud that he was never at risk a -- he was told there were ars, and there were flag poles with spears attached to them and the weapons were there, and he said they're not going to hurt me. they wanted to successfully pressure pence to do something we already know he knew was

illegal from the hearing last thursday and the secret service today confirms that trump was mad when he got in the vehicle because he wanted to go to the capitol. we also know that his role in the fake electors' scheme is different knowing about that planned movement, the planned otr to the capitol. lay out for us what you think the new questions are about trump's criminal exposure. >> you've done a great job of laying out which looks to me like the operation of a conspiracy. all of this activity that you've talked about, this is a plan being put into effect or an attempt to put the plan into effect. so from a prosecutorial point of view, if you're talking about charging a conspiracy, no matter what kind of conspiracy it is, one to interfere with congress or on this new evidence of violence, something that now has to be investigated whether trump

was involved in some form of seditious conspiracy, prosecutors have to prove the agreement and in many ways we've rushed past him and assumed there was an agreement or evidence that one would be developed. cassidy hutchinson gave a piece of testimony in this rega rd that i suspect is so influential and that prosecutors have to follow up on. she talks about the fact that mark meadows, her boss, the white house chief of staff wanted to go to the willard war room to participate in a meeting there and meeting where people including mike flinn were present and if we're looking for a moment where a conspiracy would have been formed we're far more likely at this late date where a conspiracy would be formed and discern the origins of a conspiracy. this looks like the moment. leave aside the notion that it was the 25-year-old in the room who was telling the president's chief of staff that it wasn't a good idea for him to show up at the willard, right? there's so much dysfunction

wrapped up in that, but here we have all of the players at the willard war room planning the fake electors' scheme and we now have a connection between them and the white house proper. if i'm an investigator or prosecutor i'm focusing on this. mark meadows' testimony is so critical in terms of what he knew because i'm just going to tell you that i am skeptical of the notion that he could have been freelansing, pleating with those folks without the president of the united states' approval. that's an assumption and it's a very big assumption and it's not a reason to prosecute a case. it's a reason to investigate further and to do it expeditiously because it's clear now that trump knew about the violence. not only did he not stop it. we know that he not only did not stop it, but he intended it to take place. >> i have a piece of her testimony. >> miss hutchinson, is it your understanding that mr. meadows called mr. stone on the 5th? >> i'm under the impression that

mr. meadows did complete a call to mr. stone and general flinn the evening of the 5th. >> and do you know what they talked about that evening, miss hutchinson? >> i'm not sure. >> is it your understanding that mr. giuliani, mr. eastman and others had set up what has been called, quote, a war room at the willard hotel on the night of the 5th? >> i was aware of that the night of the 5th. >> and do you know if mr. meadows ever intended to go to the willard hotel on the night of the 5th? >> mr. meadow his a conversation with me where he wanted me to work with secret service on a movement from the white house to the willard hotel so he could attend the meeting or meetings with mr. giuliani and his associates in the war room. >> so, luke, this ties mr. meadows to stone. i mean, we knew about giuliani and i'll play the testimony of the giuliani and the 2nd is an important day and it's when

trump calls ravens perger and it's the next day when he makes clark the attorney general for as many hours as it takes to change his title on the white house call log, but this testimony about meadows it wasn't just a whim to stop by. plan a secret service movement. and you have the secret service planning a route and it is now a scheduled stop. talk about how much more the committee plans in future hearings to sort of flush out the intersectionality between the white house actors and the ones closely and now knowingly tied to the violence. >> i mean, you can see exactly what liz cheney is doing there. she's a lawyer herself and she's taking the witness step by step through the connections to get you from donald trump toe the groups that lead the storming of the capitol, right? and so she's connecting trump to

meadows to stone to flinn to the proud boys to the oath keepers and we know roger stone was guarded by the oath keepers and the proud boys in the days preceding january 6th and on january 6th. we know some of the people associated with roger stone have been charged with federal crimes on january 6th, and so there's always been these questions about how can you link the mob and the domestic violent extremists to trump? we've had evidence in the court case about stewart rhodes trying to call the white house, trying to call trump directly on january 6th. we have evidence about enrique tarrio, the head of the proud boys, going to the white house in the days before january 6th, and so i do think we were going to hear a lot about these

connections of the january 6th committee and they have promised to hear about people in trump's orbit if not donald trump himself at the next hearing and we've been told that there was evidence that we do not know about yet as reporters and we have done quite, you know, deeply to try to get this evidence. i do think there's more to come out here and this could be potentially the most explosive hearing yet building on the testimony of cassidy hutchinson. >> carol, i have to deal with the elephant in the room and that is the role of the secret service. you know better than anyone on this panel about the secret service, anyone that travels with the president is protected by being adjacent to a president. so i have a lot of affection for the people who protected the president i worked for and by extension me, but i can't believe that no one at the united states secret service wants to testify publicly to

clear their name. they look like they were accessories to criminal conduct. >> well, there are a lot of ways to interpret the role of the secret service and there were many of them that were on operation mode on january 6th, but let's just take it piece by piece and by the way, i share your deep respect for the agents, many of them, not all of them, many of them and their duty to country, their duty and the oath they swear to being objective, independent, civil servants who protect democracy and not the man, but protect the democracy that we enjoy. individuals who were with donald trump on january 6th essentially did their job. they blocked the president despite him apparently roaring in their faces from going with the rabble, the mob that was heading to the capitol. they said no, sir, cannot do that insane thing that you are

proposing. so that is, check, mission accomplished. you know, their civil servant job performed. however, there is a problem in all of this which is the secret service uniformly kept enabling donald trump all along the way in the final year of his office, doing things that were extremely dangerous and to his own agents, to his own health, to the health and safety of peaceful protesters. the forcible clearing of june 1 of lafayette square, the campaign rallies that created and increased legal surges of covid that trump insisted on campaigning and who ordered them? tony ornato who was also with donald trump on january 6th and

the question becomes did he do what he was supposed to do to protect the public and protect democracy? and we will see if he and also the security detail leader for president trump testify before the committee. the agency, the secret service has said that they will make themselves available to testify under oath and they dispute some of cassidy hutchinson's allegations and accounts and they say they do. so let's see what they have to say about what happened that day because first off, sorry to be long, it's a crime to have a gun on federal land. why didn't the secret service do anything about that? it's a crime to assault a federal officer. if donald trump laid hands on his detail leader inside the suv in which they were traveling january 6th as cassidy hutchinson was told, that's a crime. so a lot of things need to be vetted and explained and we'll look for part to what those

secret service agents have to share with the public. >> what i was thinking if it's not a crime to send people that you know are armed with ars to where your vice president is who is also protected by united states secret service, then maybe it should be. i mean, on the act of now knowingly sending armed supporters to -- who were committed to hanging mike pence, i wonder if there's any examination or inspector general that is looking at trump's role in endangering the life of a sitting vice president. >> there probably should be, but i think the department of justice is higher ranking in the hierarchy of trying to get to the bottom of that, inside the secret service there's a lot of pooh poohing of this. there's a lot of oh, well, donald trump may have said that he wanted to take down the mags. he wanted to let people continue to carry weapons and come to his rally, but we just -- we just

dissed that, we'll never violate our protocols, but where were the arrests of these people with weapons? because the reason capitol police did not fire on anybody that day who were literally almost killing their own soldiers in arms, killing the police, they were almost at the stage of killing multiple police officers, heart attacks, spears, bear spray, heart attacks, everything, why didn't they do that? because they were afraid of a bloodbath. they were afraid if they pulled the trigger it would start all of the people who were armed who they knew were armed in the crowd firing back and then it would have been civil war on the steps of the capitol. >> it's unbelievable. no one is going anywhere. when we come back, that didn't take long, people in the trump world are already trying to shoot down the veracity of

cassidy hutchinson's testimony. so far those attempts falling flat. what is next from maga world, so what if he did it stage? our conversation continues. plus doj says they are watching these hearings and a look at where they are today 24 hours after attorney general merrick garland heard testimony that the ex-president directed a mob as we've been discussing, a mob he knew was armed and wanted to march to the capitol with them. the ballot and all of those stories and more after "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. stay with us. continues after a quick break. stay with us we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, like asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee. yeah i should've just led with that. with at&t business. you can pick the best plan for each employee and get the best deals on every smart phone.

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ton of hearsay and wow, a lot of impeached testimony we'll get to in a second. >> i've been in the beast countless times and in the suvs countless times. i would find it very difficult to lunge into the front and do that. particularly in the beast. it's not developed that way. >> i spoke to white house staffers, three or four of them in the afternoon and they knew her well and not one person had anything good to say about her performance today. >> so pay close attention not to the fact that they attacked cassidy hutchinson who was once on the same side, probably politically still is, but how they attack her. it's part of the reason why cassidy hutchinson was such an extraordinary witness, but we know what will happen now. they will insist she was a low-level staffer, coffee girl, i hardly knew her and the former

white house trump secretary sarah matthews tweeted anybody downplaying cassidy hutchinson's role or her access in the west wing either doesn't understand lou the trump white house worked or is attempting to discredit her because they're scared of how damning this testimony is. phase two when you start to hear the buzz words, gossip. it's all gossip, rumors in the grapevine. these are descriptions so very typical for people trying to discredit a young woman with people making the comments, they're making them on television. cassidy hutchinson was sworn in on capitol hill. it would have been against the law for her to lie a point her lawyer made in a tweet. miss hutchinson testified under oath and recounted what she was told under oath. >> we agree. as they try to discredit her, smear her, damage ler and those attacks will likely endanger her safety and honing in on

discrepancies in one single anecdote. a story inside two hours of testimony having to do with trump grabbing a steering wheel. there's a lot we don't know about what happened in the moment. hutchinson was completely transparent. she didn't say she was in the car. she said she heard the story. it was recounted to her secondhand. that was her sworn testimony. let's be clear, trump's fixations on that story is a red herring, a distraction. there's nothing else in the testimony that they could or would dispute. we are back with our panel. so katty kay, first the earth cooled and then men started extend being the severity of the alter kags. she's recounting a story told to her by two men near the clavicle by the sitting president and the stories may be b.s., and they were recounted to her and she testified under oath under

penalty of persecution if she lied to congress. >> that's why we're saying earlier is so important that we need to hear directly from the secret service agents. what made cassidy hutchinson so credible as a witness apart from her demeanor, her poise and the way she recounted things clearly and succinctly and answered all of the questions was that she was very honest and candid about what she heard directly and what was secondhand to her. she made absolutely no pretense that she had been in the car and even to the extent that when she was outside the dining room, i was about two feet away and i got to hear one conversation about mark meadows and i can hear in the background what was being said in the dining room. her memory is meticulous and either she took notes at the time or she had some kind of other way of keeping her memory clear because remember, now this is over a year ago, but her memory is clear and she is very specific about what she knew

directly and what she knew and i think that increased her credibility and i was struck -- when people attacked trump, it probably means they were one of the people he knew best in the world because he attacks people over weather hardly knows him. they're not attacking the specifics of what she says and that's a very important point. >> yeah. i mean, the -- here's the piece of this story that i find so interesting, the secret service today confirms the most devastating parts of just that anecdote that one, trump wanted to go to the capitol and two, he was mad. again, she's testifying under oath in front of congress. if she's lying i'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it, and the truthy part here, the part that the secret service should want to tell the country is what really happened in the car. i guess my question for you is other than knowing that he

wanted to go to the capitol and understanding why for any future prosecutions, does any of the rest of it matter? >> well, it does matter. i think the secret service agents -- i'm sorry. >> go ahead, joyce. >> go ahead, joyce. >> i think the secret service agents actually should come and testify and tell their side of the story under oath because now the integrity of this witness has become important to the ongoing movement of the committee and we're entitled to know whether they'll say under oath what they're willing to say anonymously. >> yeah. i guess, katty, that will be the next question. it sort of begets what is the motive for people not coming forward? you've now got a firsthand witness and something republicans made a big deal over in impeachment one who has testified to what everybody did, who was the gateway to the white house chief of staff who was almost like a mini president in

the way this white house functioned. that's not always the case, but it certainly was in this white house. what do you make of the pressure on not just the secret service agent and the deputy white house chief of staff of operations which was the title given to the ex-secret service employee, but to people like pat cipollone? >> yeah. by the way, mick mulvaney tweeted last night that he basically believed cassidy hutchinson, right? he was saying anyone who knows cassidy hutchinson would know that she didn't lie under oath. so there you have someone directly in the white house who did know cassidy hutchinson and who knew what she was doing and who had served as a character witness for her which again, makes us think she was under oath. there was no reason to believe and people who knew her have tweeted about this, that she was lying. so it seems like the important person to come forward is pat cipollone. she mentions him so often and mark meadows and that's who they

would like to get and so far he's resisted all attempts and pat cipollone is someone who could corroborate many of the specific points becse heas many of thecific scenes that she recounts. she could corroborate exactly what she was saying. >> carol leonnig, luke broadwater, katty kay. ahead for us, legal facing donald j. trump and how the select committee's hearings may be playing or moving the ball forward over at doj. stay with us. d over at doj. d over at doj. stay with us until you're ready. then we deliver to your new home - across town or across the country. pods, your personal moving and storage team.

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get the brands you trust to get the job done at wayfair. ♪ wayfair you've got just what i need ♪ i will be watching all the hearings, although i may not be able to watch all of it live, but i'll be sure to be watching all of it, and i can assure you that the january 6th prosecutors are watching all the hearings, as well. we are proceeding with full urgency with respect, as i've said many times before, to hold all perpetrators who are criminally responsible for january 6th accountable regardless of their level, their position and regardless of whether they were present at the events of january 6th. >> that promise from attorney general merrick garland sounds different today. he made that promise as the hearings began earlier this month to follow the facts

wherever they lead, but what does that mean after a day like yesterday? cassidy hutchinson's testimony about an unhinged plate-throwing ex-president who knew about armed supporters and directed them to head to the capitol anyway. the committee whose members have said they have enough credible evidence to refer him for indictment should they choose to do so. meanwhile, new details are emerging about a man named thomas wyndham, he's the latest federal prosecutor who has been assigned to lead the doj's criminal investigation and obtain transcripts from the select committee. he is working under attorney general's garland's close supervision. new york times describes wyndham this way as a little-known, but aggressive prosecutor who has been leading investigators and has methodically been seeking information for the role played by trump's top advisors including rudy giuliani, jenaelis and john eastman with the mandate to go as high up the chain of command as the evidence

warrants. joining us after too long of an absence, former senior member robert mueller's investigation, mike schmidt is also here, new york times correspondent and msnbc national security contributor and his byline is on that. let me take a step back. tell me what you think and you know paul of the players very well, the attorney general and the deputy attorney general who under normal circumstances, i know this isn't normal would oversee investigations and prosecutions. what do you think their take on cassidy hutchinson was as a witness yesterday? >> one of the things that we don't know is if the department of justice is really aggressively investigating they actually already knew this. if they didn't then if you listened to her testimony there is an absolute gold mine of

witnesses that you need to talk to. so to take an example from your last segment, everyone's talking about the fact that she testified, a low-level or relatively low-level staffer compared to the president and mark meadows and pat cipollone, but the department of justice has the ability to issue grand jury subpoenas and to force all of those people to testify. pat cipollone has clearly not going to have the fifth amendment right to refuse to testify, and the department can put him and secret service agents into the grand jury and get the answers that we're all wondering about which is a classic issue for the department which is what happened? so you have a witness where you can put all of the other witnesses in the grand jury and have them testify about what happens. now some of that may have happened already.

my bet is it hasn't ks but if you're in santa monica or the new principle deputy marshall miller, you are taking evidence from the people who are put on the grand jury. >> let me just press you on this -- this interesting line that you articulated more clearly than anyone before. if they were investigating they would know this already. do you think there's any sort of race against time on the side of the congressional investigation out of concern that as doj catches up, if you will, some of these witnesses may suddenly be unavailable? >> i think there's a race against time for the congressional investigation is the midterms and that they may no longer have the power to do this, and if the house flips that there is going to be the department's going to be playing defense and there are going to be hearings, but for the justice

department, this is a question of needing to act with e lack riddy because it is a four-year period and this is an important investigation. lisa monica was definitely trained by robert mueller at the fbi and is used to aking quickly and i think would be pressing that as would marshall miller, the number two to lisa monaco. so i think there will be some urgency and weave seen that in connection with search warrantses last week, but we haven't seen reports of the urgency with respect to interviews and grand jury subpoenas, but i would think after yesterday's testimony if the department did not know about that beforehand and shame on them if they did not, but they should be pressing for all of the corroboration to make sure that what miss hutchinson

said is accurate and truthful and to obtain as much corroboration as possible. >> mike schmidt, you and your scleegs -- and that's mr. wyndham. tell us what you guys port. we set out a profile of the latest investigator to walk into the ring to take on we talk to peter schstrzok about what it's like to be that person? what's is like to investigate trump? for a lack of a better way of describing it, there are a plethora of people who have had their reputations stained or their careers ended by investigating trump and at the beginning of all those investigations, you know, they're all sort of depicted as

the smartest, best prosecutors that the justice department has, but trump time and time again was able to prevail in these investigations and in many times landed significant blows, firing jim comey and having andy mccabe fired and just a few examples of what it's like when you try to investigate trump and the consequences that have come with it and peter strzok in his story giving a very stark warning to mr. wyndham basically saying he thought he was doing the right thing investigating trump and his ties to russia and that that would protect him and he didn't appreciate that there is a whole group of people out there that would be dedicated to going over every part of his life and basically trying to destroy is and that's a pretty strike warning upon. >>y remember when donald trump

start attacking robert mruler was untouchable and in a lot of corners is sacred. there didn't isn't an end to what he will play and after playing legal whodini, do you think that weighs on the justice department's mind that he is somehow above the law? >> i don't think so. one thing that i would add to mike's litany is that for many people, being attacked by a subject of a criminal investigation and particularly in the way that the former president did is frankly, a badge of honor. it is not something that, you know -- it's a flesh wound, at best and one comment i would make is, you know, one of the things that the former president is doing is exactly what he did

during publish asked he was able either unable to testify under oath or submit them the ability to be prosecuted criminally, so again, we're seeing the same thing. and one thing that if i were on the january 6th committee is i would say you deny this? come on in and testify. the idea that the president -- the former president's being allowed to deny this but not under oath, if there's secret service agents who want to deny what ms. hutchinson said, they should come in and testify under oath, and let's go right to the top. if the former president wants to deny this, he should come in and testify under oath like any other civilian. >> when we come back, that nugget vice chair liz cheney dropped about witness

intimidation might certainly be of interest to federal prosecutors. we'll talk about that next. don't go anywhere. that next don't go anywhere.

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♪ ♪ ♪♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. ♪♪ [whistling] with technology that can scale across all your clouds... it's easier to do more innovative things. [whistling] we're back with andrew and mike. i want to get to both of you on this question that liz cheney raised at the end of yesterday's hearing about witness tampering, obstructing an investigation. mike, you covered the mueller moeb. i believe robert mueller looked into witness tampering. andrew, you prosecuted manafort

who flipped on trump and then flipped back. i want to ask all of you how that obscures our ability to get at the truth. mike, you first. >> look, it's pretty chilling, and it really echoed with what went on in the mueller investigation. there's a tape that came out of the president's lawyer during the mueller investigation calling mike flynn's lawyer and saying essentially the same type of things that liz cheney was putting up that the witnesses were testifying about, the overtures that were made to them, and it's a tactic that can obviously be very effective. it can be very chilling, and the thing that i found particularly interesting -- and i'm curious about is that the junior white house aides who do not have the resources that older folks in trump's orbit may have have been the real key witnesses here. and, you know, was this pressure directly on those more junior

folks who may not be able to afford a high paying lawyer, may have to rely on someone else paying for the lawyer for them. you know, what was that pressure like on those junior aides? >> andrew weissman, you saw this up close. i mean, bottom line this for us, including witness tampering. what kind of criminal exposure does donald trump face today? >> well, one thing we don't know yet from what liz cheney said is exactly who did the tampering and on whose behalf and did it emanate from donald trump. if it did -- and that certainly is something that the justice department should be looking at, then he faces serious exposure in the same way as we've been talking about, manafort was convicted of witness tampering. roger stone was convicted of that. it is something that is relatively easy to prosecute, and it also shows such

consciousness of guilt so it is something that people at the justice department take incredibly seriously because it goes to the heart of what you do at the justice department, which is investigate crimes. so when you have mob bosses and political -- people in political corruption cases interfering with witnesses, it is both a threat to finding out the truth, but if you can prove it, it really advances your case, as it did in the mueller investigation. >> the number of instances wherein legal experts and prosecutors have to explain things in terms of how you prosecute a mob boss is amazing. i'm going to turn it into a tally. andrew weissman, it's great to have you back at the table. mike schmidt, thank you so much for joining us as well. up next for us, you know it's bad when fox and one of trump's many former chiefs of staff are saying, wow, yesterday's testimony was epic. we'll be right back with that. sc sc we'll be right back with that.

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the bottom line, though, is this testimony is stunning. you have others who are weighing in here behind the scenes through her testimony, and listen, i think this -- it does move the ball in this -- in this hearing. this testimony was very compelling from beginning to end. she obviously had access to all of the players. >> i've been defending the president against the charges of incitement to riot. i've seen the same speech he's given dozens of times. i've seen him accused of trying to foment violence with no violence coming at all. i've been defending him. after yesterday when she testified that he knew there were guns on the property and he still encouraged people to go down to the capitol, that certainly changes my mind. >> it's 5:00 in the east, how bad is it? well, it's so bad for the twice

impeached disgraced ex-president that his ex-chief of staff and his most favorite news network are describing just how devastating of a blow yesterday's testimony by cassidy hutchinson was in the same way the rest of us are. hutchinson's live appearance before the select committee investigating the capitol insurrection was chock full of alarming new details about the ex-president's conduct surrounding the 6th. the portrait painted yesterday at the january 6th hearing by cassidy hutchinson, a top aide it former white house chief of staff mark meadows wasn't simply of a criminal president but of a seditious madman, even republican members of congress who have long supported donald trump told reporters anonymously that hutchinson's testimony was, quote, worse than they imagined. they were stunned and left speechless. some inside trump world were squirming as revelation after

revelation were dished out. quote, current and former aides to trump sent one another messages as the hearing took place describing a series of disclosures that they conceded were potentially quite damaging. mostly politically but potentially legally. if trump was indeed warned that people were armed and still encouraged them to walk to the capitol, some advisers privately say that could potentially bolster a charge against him related to incitement. recognizing how damaging hutchinson's accounts were, the twice impeached ex-president immediately attacked her in multiple tweets, i don't know if we'd call them that on his own social network. even that was called out by fox news. >> we are now hearing from the former president on various posts where he questions her accuracy. he goes after her directly. he says he doesn't know who she is, and said he didn't lunge at the secret service agent, that didn't happen. he says he didn't throw his

lunch against the wall, that didn't happen, and that she's lying. cassidy hutchinson is under oath on capitol hill. the president is on truth social making his statements. >> it made me laugh the first couple of times i heard it. it's ludicrous. going back to more of trump's ex-acting chief of staff mick mulvaney's reaction as well, he addressed the political shock waves yesterday's hearing sent through the gop. >> i think one of the outcomes of yesterday is that mike pence is going to look much more hard at running in 2024, maybe ron desantis, tim scott, i'm sure nikki haley was on the phone saying can i run for president, mike pompeo, i think the field of 2024 candidates in the republican party got a lot bigger yesterday. >> and just a few minutes ago, cassidy hutchinson was out with a new statement for his lawyers. it says this, quote, ms.

hutchinson stands by all the testimony she provided yesterday under oath to the select committee to investigate the january 6th attack on the u.s. capitol. the impact of hutchinson's shocking testimony on trump landia is where we start the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. aaron blake here is here, a.b. stoddard, and charles blow is back, "new york times" columnist and msnbc political analyst. i start with you, aaron blake. the story in its entirety is in the vein of shocking, not surprising. the lurid details are sort of a granular description of the depravity that was on full display every hour on donald trump's twitter feed through all four years of his presidency. the only piece of her testimony that's being debated today -- and not knocked down, just

debated -- is one anecdote about donald trump's physicality inside a limousine. but even on that, the united states secret service has confirmed the two most important things in terms of any sort of intent that donald trump had. that's, one, that he was mad, and two, it was because he couldn't go to the u.s. capitol and he desperately wanted to. what's your take on sort of the morning after cassidy hutchinson? >> yeah, i think you're right about the secret service story and how crucial it is to this entire process. does that anecdote tell us much about corrupt intent? does that tell us about whether the president incited a riot at the capitol? i don't think that really moves the ball forward. certainly there are, you know, there will be arguments about witness credibility and we need to learn more from those secret service agents. i think more specifically the big things here are what we were talking about before, which is the request -- the information that the president was

apparently delivered by anthony ar ornato, that there were weapons in the crowd. the president at the very least was indifferent to that fact and wanted those people to be allowed into his rally and then to move towards the capitol. this is what's significant when it comes to evaluating the president's intent. this is what's significant when it comes to what this committee is actually going after which is the obstruction of an official proceeding, the crime that liz cheney broached many months ago. >> a.b. stoddard, i want to show you something that congressman jamie raskin said just before cassidy hutchinson testified in a sort of live interview with "the new york mes." >> every day i hear from republicans who are saying keep it up, you are getting through to people. people are starting to listen to what you guys are saying. the overwhelming number of witnesses we've seen have been overtly partisan republicans,

people like brad rafraffensperg people like speaker bauer from arizona. these are lifelong republicans, but they're saying we're not going to lie for our party. we're not going to cheat and steal for one guy. we're going to remain faithful to our oath of office. >> so a.b., i heard that when it happened, julie davis was on the day she did the interview, but i saw it differently today, and what's clear when you watch cassidy hutchinson's testimony is that this wasn't some extraordinary breakdown of protocols in the white house, the plate throwing, the raging, the running around almost in zombie like trances out of fear of the boss, that's the reason there were so many chiefs of staff in the first place, a sort of reign of terror of the jhavon ka access of power and all their little lackies that were

separate from the perez office. what's extraordinary is there's so few republicans willing to say that out loud that jamie raskin can name them on a short list. >> right, i think it's so interesting that his colleagues have been encouraging him to continue because it speaks to this theme we've discuss sod many millions of times that republicans privately can't stand trump and now they just are so excited that they might be able to be getting rid of him for 2024 where you saw mick mulvaney rubbing that in, naming a whole bunch of people who are so delighted who are 20 wan na bes. this is different day. we have never seen on the same day, someone like mick mulvaney come out a former member of the staff, a former member of congress and the freedom caucus

who came up and was very tight with jim jordan and everyone else. coming out the same day "the wall street journal" and the washington examiner are coming out saying enough, national review, that this is incredibly damning and trump has really done himself in. i think we've just never seen that before. i'm not saying it will last. i'm saying it's different and remarkable. i think the members of congress who are trying to say this is still a partisan committee that really won't resonate outside of washington, you know, obviously all know that what we learned yesterday, ketchup and strangling in a limousine, what we learned was trump was plotting with his staff. they were all aware of a conspiracy to lie about the election and to disrupt the proceedings in many ways either with trump himself or to use mike pence, but that they were aware that we would have violence, and i think what we

learned yesterday is he just relished the fact that the mob was armed and he would join them in approaching the capitol. god knows what he intended, but the fact is we learned that there could have been a massacre outside the building as well as inside the building. so they'll have to wrestle with those facts and that will be really tough for them to escape. >> charles blow, i want to show you some more cassidy hutchinson's testimony, but i first want to come to you for your reaction. there's so much, you know, i think as a.b. is playing out, there's so much more that we know for sure now. we know that no one thought antifa was out there. we know that everyone knew they had weapons including ar-15s, and we know now that donald trump always planned to be there. it's the plan as discussed between rudy giuliani and mark meadows and cassidy hutchinson on the 2nd. that happens to be the same day trump is on the phone with raffensperger trying to find 11,780 votes in georgia. it is the next day that he fires

jeffrey clark to try to have the election turned over from inside doj. the plan to go to the capitol was always about being up there for when the count of the electoral votes was stopped. i think it puts donald trump in the quarterback position for overthrowing the results of the election. >> i think you're absolutely right, and i think -- was incredibly damning. i think we have to remember that we've heard incredibly damning things about donald trump before, including things from his own mouth, you know, the access hollywood tape may be the first one in his political life where you could hear it from his own mouth. the question is whether or not any of this breaks out of the cycle of us hearing it and nothing coming out of it. i think what american people are waiting for is to see whether or not something sticks. he's held accountable for

something. i think that every time that he's not -- he does something and he's not held accountable for it, he becomes stronger in the culture. there's a animal sensibility happening around trump where people -- as long as he's strong, they're going to follow, they feel like he's strong, they're going to follow. you saw, you know, in the moments right after the insurrection where they felt like he was weak, and they turned on him, but it didn't last long because they realized he wasn't actually injured beyond repair. he's going to get back up, and they fell back in line. that is the definition of pack animal, the behavior. that is what's happening, so until something sticks where they really understand that he's damaged and he is down, nothing will make a difference to them. >> yeah, i completely agree with you. i always thought of him as a super virus, but pack animal is good as well. aaron blake, we learned more about the republican members of congress. we've been learning in dribs and

drabs, their role in trying to further the fake elector scheme. mr. perry seems to have a lot of exposure on that front and participation. mr. loudermilk seems to have exposure. there seems to be evidence in the hands of the committee about surveillance tours, but we learned that kevin mccarthy was in possession of some knowledge about what trump wanted to do at the capitol, and he was so upset about it that he berated cassidy hutchinson. let me play that part of her testimony. >> i was still in the tent behind the stage, and when you're behind the stage, you can't really hear what's going on in front of you, so when mr. mccarthy called me with this information, i answered the call, and he sounded rushed but also frustrated and angry at me. i was confused because i didn't know what the president had just said. he then explained the president just said he's marching to the capitol. you told me this whole week you

aren't coming up here. why would you lie to me. i said i'm not lying. i wasn't lying to you, sir. we're not going to the capitol, and he said, well, he just said it on stage, cassidy, figure it out. don't come up here. i said i'll run the traps on this one, i'll shoot you a text, i can assure you we're not coming up to the capitol. we've already made that decision. >> so aaron blake, kevin mccarthy who from election day on doesn't acknowledge that president joe biden won in a legitimate free and fair election and donald trump lost, leaves it to 25-year-old -- she's 26 now -- she was 25 when this all happened, leaves it to cassidy hutchinson to keep an ex-president from coming up the hill. kevin mccarthy could have gone to the microphone and forbidden donald trump from coming and disrupting the peaceful transfer of power. i watch a lot of news, but i never saw that.

what exposure political and legal do you think the republican accomplices have today? >> it's a good question, and obviously we are continuing to learn things about how kevin mccarthy thought that this was all a very bad thing. we've seen that in his comments after the insurrection. we saw that in the leaked tapes of what he was telling his colleagues in the aftermath of that, even floating, you know, a resignation. there was, you know, people who were talking about the 25th amendment. i think this part is really important because we knew there was some discord in the trump team about this idea to go up to the capitol. we knew that there was disagreements about whether that was a good idea. there were people who wanted to do it, rudy giuliani, otherwise who apparently disagreed according to cassidy hutchinson's testimony, that would include mark meadows who said that could result in a real, real, real bad day on

january 6th. i think the more we learn this was rolled around in the white house it increases the questions about just how much detail this was talked about. if they're talking about this over and over again, if this is something that many people were looped in on, how many other people would have been aware of this conversation about weapons potentially being there? how many other people would have agreed with mark meadows that this was a real, real bad prospect and that something bad could happen here according to cassidy hutchinson's testimony? and so i think that's something that we're likely to see the committee focus on a lot moving forward because, again, this brings us back to the idea of corrupt intent. did people know something bad could happen or even desire something bad to happen, having that kind of threat there is crucial when it comes to proving that this wasn't just about getting mike pence to do something, that there was a larger play at play here and that lots of people knew something bad could happen and they pressed forward anyways. >> yeah, i mean, a.b., it's not about just getting mike pence to

do something. it's about getting mike pence to do something or else. we already know from the sworn testimony from mike pence's former chief of staff, mark short and former chief legal counsel that the chief of staff went to the secret service the day before on january 5th and said the vice president could be in a lot of danger. what we learned yesterday is it was danger from the president. we've talked around and in obscure ways about who was at risk and who threatened them. donald trump directed an armed mob to hang mike pence. i mean, they were chanting hang mike pence, and he was for it, but he directed the armed mob to the capital where he knew mike pence was in danger because he's already been told that they were chanting hang mike pence. now, the weird part of it is that the secret service denied that story initially. i think they've walked back from there, but now you have the secret service in the middle of a political firestorm about what the president did and didn't do

in a vehicle. i saw the clips of kellyanne conway. liz cheney made a decision to show a suburban. that's not the beast. the beast is the limo, so all those interviews of laura ingraham and kellyanne conway saying i was in the beast all the time. so was i. the vehicle shown in the sworn testimony is the suburban. you can easily reach forward, the kids are in the back of a suburban, they can easily reach forward. what they're knocking down is not the evidence that was entered into the public record yesterday. >> nicolle, we cannot get hung up on the limousine story. i mean, again, i really hope the people who are contradicting ms. hutchinson's testimony are going to come and speak under oath, but really it has nothing to do with the fact that as you point out, donald trump intended to go to the capitol with an armed mob to intimidate mike pence into

stopping the certification of the electoral counts that had been certified in the states and to overturn a free and fair election. and when he couldn't do that he sent the tweet knowing that mike pence was in danger, hoping that the mob would reach him, and they came within seconds and feet of him. and god knows what they would have done to him. the most important thing is that we know that pat cipollone who has to man up was adamant about the fact that they were going to -- that crimes and be charged with, quote, every crime imaginable, and i really hope if someone out there is owning a racehorse, they hope to run in the derby next year, they will use that name, every crime imaginable. this is such proof yesterday that everybody knew it would be violent and it would be illegal. it just -- it has nothing to do with the secret service and these people contradicting hutchinson, it has to do with the days before what we have learned about the plotting of the coup, how much of a crook and a bum mark meadows is and

how much they almost let so many people get killed so that donald trump could stop mike pence. that's what we learned in stark terms yesterday, and you can't escape it. those are the separate facts and they're the more salient fact from what happened in the limousine. >> aaron blake, you know who knows that's true? rudy giuliani knows that's true, and mark meadows knows that's true. this is cassidy hutchinson's testimony about their interest in a pardon. >> did rudy giuliani ever suggest that he was interested in receiving a presidential pardon related to january 6th? >> he did. >> ms. hutchinson, did white house chief of staff mark meadows ever indicate that he was interested in receiving a presidential pardon related to january 6th. >> mr. meadows did seek that pardon, yes, ma'am. >> so they all knew this too. right? they all wanted pardons for

their roles in trying to overturn the results of a free and fair election. >> i've now counted i think nine people that have been directly linked to a pardon request. we have giuliani and meadows. we also have, of course, john eastman, and then five or six republican members of congress, depending on how you count it. hutchinson offered various testimony when it came to how directly she knew about these requests, but this seemed to be going around. this seemed to be something that was -- that was being talked about pretty openly given how many requests there were, and of course we shouldn't be too surprised about that because when we first learned about this, john eastman, that email that he sent, it referred to, quote the pardon list. that suggests there was a list out there. this wasn't just something that you he came up with on his own. i think the question from there is are they seeking pardons because they know they have something -- they have done something illegal or as mo brooks said because they worried about what democrats would do

with this. >> that was suggested who would actually won the election, so it all seems complicated for them. aaron blake, a.b. stoddard and charles blow, thank you for starting us off. cassidy hutchinson, how her testimony stacks up in history. plus, the big lie was on the ballot in primary elections last night, and in one key state it was utterly defeated. and later in the hour, a live report from ukraine where fierce fighting has led to the realization of one of putin's biggest fears, "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. stay with us. nues after a quick break. break. stay with us is clinically shown in a 7 day study to cause fewer ulcers than immediate release aspirin. vazalore is designed to help protect... releasing aspirin afteran it leaves your stomach.... where it is absorbed to help prevent another heart attack or stroke.

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with some political moments, it's impossible to know just how historic it really is, as it's unfolding, but this is not one of those instances. just in terms of sheer magnitude, what we heard yesterday from cassidy hutchinson was literally testimony for the history books. it makes watergate look almost trivial in terms of the conduct, in shadow of what is likely the biggest political scandal in american history. the question's already been raised during our broadcast. will it matter. max boot's column seeks to answer that. if there is any justice in the world, hutchinson's testimony will finally breakthrough the force field of indifference enveloping the republican party. having seen trump survive too many other scandals that should have ended his disgraceful political career, i cannot be overly sanguine that he has finally reached his rightful reckoning. the cancer has been exposed but could still continue to metastasize. joining us now nbc news

presidential historian michael beschloss. i was 28 when i went to work in the white house and i watched this very composed, 26 years old, former white house staffer who literally sat right at the gates of the power center of the trump white house. we know that that is what she did. that was her job. everyone came to her. rudy giuliani came to her to get trump to go to the capitol on the 6th. cipollone came to her barreled down the hall to stop the president from committing crimes. what is your sense of how -- what we learned yesterday will either change or endure through time? >> oh, i think it's going to endure, first of all, honored to be with you as always, nicolle. thank you for asking me. i think -- i can't see any way that this is not an historic day what happened yesterday unless you can believe that this investigation is going to stop with our witness yesterday and go no further. you know, to use the watergate

parallel, i hesitate to say that because what trump has done is just about the worst thing an american president can do. as we now know, unleashing potential violence in an attack on the capitol in congress that's going to remove the peaceful transfer of power and take down our democracy, compared to that, anything and everything that richard nixon did was trivial, so this is a different level. to use the john dean comparison in late june of 1973, there had been watergate hearings in the senate for, what, about a month, and they were lower level figures, and no one was close enough to nixon to say this cover-up of the watergate scandal actually involved the president. john dean who was nixon's counsel in the white house was the first one who went into those hearings, and the first thing he said was i hope the president will be forgiven.

that told everyone how serious this was going to be. and for hour after hour this firsthand witness said that richard nixon was at the center of this conspiracy, this plot, and what that did was it broke a lot of other people loose. some people were scared and wanted to cover their rear end and the result was that ultimately watergate was exposed, nixon was driven out of office. trump is already out of office, but as a result of what we saw yesterday, he could face i guesses to use donald trump language, he could go through some things. >> he's going to go through some things. that's right. one of the things i think about all the time is liz cheney's view of the existential threat of trumpism as representing flashing red, danger to our democracy. it is -- i worked with her in the days and months and years after 9/11. it is the same way she talked

about and frankly her father talked about, the threat the homeland faced after 9/11. she views trump as an existential danger to our democracy. talk about liz cheney's role in terms of the story that's unfolding before our eyes. >> makes a huge difference, and i have agreed with that for seven years. i have thought that donald trump was a potential danger to democracy and each year that passed, i was more convinced that he was, and thank god for liz cheney who basically may have sacrificed her elected political career in order to be one of the rare republican leaders that is standing up and saying this guy is no conservative. he is a radical threat to democratic institutions. that's a radical. that's a revolutionary. that's a threat to america, there's nothing conservative about that. how many other republican leaders have done that in the last year? >> very, very few. there's a piece too, and maybe you have to be an ex-republican

whose heart was once broken by the party breaking bad to see it, but there's a piece of her trying to save conservatism. when you look at the long arc of history, do you think it can be save? >> if we talk about real conservative, yes. i choose to believe the majority of americans still love our small d democratic institutions. want to see a supreme court that is not extreme. wants to see a congress who is not full of people who are bowing to a cult leader in a throne room in palm beach. want to see a president who may have views that people disagree with but at least stays within the rule of law. that's something that you and i have demanded, you know, and people like us for over two centuries. all of that right now is in danger. >> yeah. >> and we're living through a time where i can't predict to you whether we'll be living in a democracy five years from now or not. i hope we are. >> it's so -- you are the

second -- jim heim said that yesterday. that's just a chilling -- i have a physical reaction to people saying that out loud on our air, but it must be true. michael beschloss thank you so much for spending time with us today. i really appreciate it. >> thank you. when we come back, the key battleground state where republican primary voters seem to have taken a stand against the big lie. we'll tell you about it, don't go anywhere. we'll tell you about it, don't we'll tell you about it, don't go anywhere. so they shoot it. hmm... back to the miro board. dave says “feed it?” and dave feeds it. just then our hero has a breakthrough. "shoot it, camera, shoot a movie!" and so our humble team saves the day by working together. on miro. love you. have a good day, behave yourself. like she goes to work at three in the afternoon and sometimes gets off at midnight.

she works a lot, a whole lot. we don't get to eat in the early morning. we just wait till we get to the school. so, yeah. right now here in america, millions of kids like victoria and andre live with hunger, and the need to help them has never been greater. when you join your friends, neighbors and me to support no kid hungry, you'll help hungry kids get the food they need. if we want to take care of our children, then we have to feed them. your gift of just $0.63 a day, only $19 a month at helpnokidhungry.org right now will help provide healthy meals and hope. we want our children to grow and thrive and to just not have to worry and face themselves with the struggles that we endure. nobody wants that for their children. like if these programs didn't exist me and aj, we wouldn't probably get lunch at all.

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another round of promising losses for big liars last night especially in colorado where republicans rejected a slate of liars in a statewide primary. nominating for november's race for the state's top election post, a trump critic and a local elections official, pam anderson over tina peters. peters is the mesa county clerk who was indicted for her role in a breach of her county's voting machines and barred from overseeing elections. for governor, colorado republicans picked a more traditional republican heidi ganahl over greg lopez. and in the senate primary, they chose republican joe o'dea who says he believes joe biden won the 2020 election and supports some abortion rights over state congressman ron hanks who marched with the crowd at the u.s. capitol on january 6th and says trump is actually the president. joining our conversation, our friends matt dowd, political strategist, also the founder of country over party, and cornell

belcher, the president of brilliant corners research. they are both msnbc contributors. i'm just reading it, i'm struck by how low the bar is. the person who wasn't indicted beat the person who was and was barred from overseeing elections but i guess matt dowd it counts as good news? >> well, i feel the same as you. i mean, the bar is allow, but i'm happy if we meet just a low bar at this point. >> yes. >> and i was actually very taken away very positive from what happened in colorado yesterday because of the republicans, and it may have been driven by unaffiliated voters who participated in the republican party primary and said it's gone too far. i actually was disappointed in the democrats in colorado, and they've done this in other places. if you're on team democracy and team democracy ought to be in the place of, listen, we want anybody that supports democracy, anybody that is not election denier, anybody that's not crazy whether you're a republican or

democrat, we want a vibrant republican party that is conservative but believes in the institutions, the constitutions and the values and equality for all. but what the democrats tried to do in colorado, which i think goes against that, is they tried to uplift the crazies and uplift election deniers in those races because they thought it would be easier to beat them in the general election, and that to me is going down a path that is not helpful in supporting and preserving our democracy. so yeah, i thought it was a ray of light and i was hopeful in the aftermath. i also think that democrats instead of spending millions of dollars try to get crazies to win these races, they actually should try to encourage, you know, republicans, constitutional republicans for winning their primary because that's what we need. we need a republican party that's back to sanity and in colorado they chose that path. >> yeah, i mean, cornell, your thoughts about what happened

last night. i think it's just too dangerous, right? i mean, the people who believe the lies are this cancer on our democracy. >> if matt didn't like what happened in colorado, he's really not going to like what happened in illinois over there where democrats were actually successful at spending millions of dollars in uplifting the republican that was most maga, and they thought they had the best chance of contrasting themselves with. i do take matt's point, but i'm not surprised that politics broke out in both of these races, and i think what's happening -- but it's also a risk. i i've seen it happen before where in a state like illinois where there's, you know, very little in the way of campaign finance laws, you know, you have millions of dollars being spent by outside groups as well. in illinois you had the dga i think sort of involved in there as well, and yes, they are making a political calculation

that the maga republican is the weakest candidate in a general election, and they are trying, in fact, to help that candidate win. i think -- i do think -- i do agree, matt, i think it's risky, but i'm not surprised that politics has broken out, but one quick thing also, nicole. i would like to -- and matt sort of brought this up. i would caveat the results from colorado a little bit with the number of unaffiliated voters who can be involved in that process as well, and we really do need to pay attention between sort of what we call close -- and i'm getting in the weeds for our viewers, but you got really smart political viewers. >> yes, the smartest. >> the open primaries versus the closed primary, and often in the closed primaries where you have to be affiliated republican, you do get the more extreme candidate, and by the way, you see that on both sides in closed primaries. >> yeah. i mean, i want to hear from both

of you about this political moment. i mean, do you feel like we're living in something where external events may be as decisive as individual races? or is it too soon to know if that will be the case in november? you first, matt. >> so i think we're in that moment. it's 131 or 132 days until election day. we're already in actually the midterm election process. that's where we're in, and things start to get settled in this. i think what's happened is with the supreme court rulings and with what's gone on with the january 6th committee, especially the last couple of hearings have raised this race and raised this -- the debate up to a much higher level than a normal midterm would be, and i actually think that benefits the democrats in this moment, so i think it changes it in that regard. it brings this up to a race that's fundamentally about who we are as americans and our american democracy in this, and we're starting to see in the last three or four days polls reflect that, so democrats are

now much more likely to vote than republicans in this race. democrats are now taking the generic -- there's a particular important poll that came out today in georgia that showed that joe biden's disapproval is a net negative 27 in georgia. net negative 27 in georgia, but warnock is up by ten and stacey abrams is even in georgia. that tells me, one, people are disconnecting from what they think about joe biden and deciding what they want to do on a down ballot, but those numbers to me are driven by a combination of the supreme court decisions and what's happened at the january 6th. and democrats have to just keep the momentum going because the race is at the level they need it at to win. >> so that is interesting, and i'm not an expert in georgia, but you know, cornell, warnock is a fighter. he's been fighting for voting rights, he's been fighting against voter suppression laws, not just in georgia, but nationwide. what is your sense in terms o. bucket of things democrats can

control. it seems to me that fighting or looking like you're fighting all of these extreme policies from the right might be good politics and good policy at this point. >> i think to build on matt's point, i think republicans will look -- may look back at this and say this was the moment where we handed them a mobilization that democrats didn't have naturally. you go back two, three months and a lot of us were ringing the alarm bell because a lot of the signs on the roadside to the midterm look like what they looked like in 2010. >> yeah. >> when i had a very good view of what that was, and -- but they're beginning to turn. they've handed democrats a mobilization tool that they did not have at first, and as a way to mobilize younger voters, a

way to mobilize women, and particularly in georgia when you look at the draconian efforts that republicans have undertaken to block and disenfranchise voters of color, they have awakened and help democrats mobilize voters of color and young voters in a way that without their overreach, we'd probably look a lot more like 2010 than 2018. >> so interesting. let's stay on it, matt down, cornell belcher, always great to see both of you. thank you so much. when we come back, four months into what has been a brutal, brutal and devastating russian invasion of ukraine and one of vladimir putin's worst nightmares is coming true, we'll tell you about it next. true, wl tell you about it next

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ukrainian president zelenskyy released new footage of that horrifying russian attack on a shopping mall in ukraine. up to 1,000 civilians who were inside at the time of the attack, 20 of them have been killed, many more injured amid intensifying and brutal russian attacks on ukraine, nato today branded russia the most direct threat to allied security and agreed to an aid package to modernize ukraine's military. in addition they've taken a step long feared by vladimir putin. they have extended invitations to sweden and finland to join their alliance as countries in

the region fear growing russian aggression. let's bring into our conversation, nbc news correspondent ali arouzi. this does seem like whatever successes russia has in a battle, they are they are losing the war between with sweden and finland joining the alliance. >> they have gone from neutral tomato and for many years that stayed out of beto partly because of public opinion and partly because they did not want to ruffle feathers exactly what putin did not want to happen landed on his doorstep with countries bordering him will be members of nato and theoretically that means u.s. hardware will be right next door to him and this is accelerated because the

atrocities he's committed in the countries. it was an appalling attack on people and you listen to ukrainian officials who say the attack makes a mockery of russian claims using high precision weapons to target military installations and that has made countries that are not members of nato edgy so everything he wanted to accomplish that is backfiring on him. >> what do we know about the fighting in the east, i understand it is very intense. >> they have lost the capital of the region and it was weeks and weeks of ferocious fighting and now the russians have the siege the city and laid it to waste. and now they have their sights

set on the twin town and are putting on a portal five and this was a town of 90,000 people and the military governor is telling everybody to get out while you can as the administration is just so dangerous. >> thank you so much for being there and for your reporting. a quick break for us and we will be right back. . when you have technology that's easier to control... that can scale across all your clouds... we got that right? yeah, we got that. it's easier to be an innovator. so you can do more incredible things.

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i want to take a second to do something for ukraine on sunday night to turn it over to nbc for an hour-long prime time network special. president zelenskyy will address the nation and there are also special appearances planned. alicia keys, brad paisley, and a credible performance from jon batiste and they are all coming together to try to help the ukrainian civilians. an opportunity to get involved if you want to buy helping families impacted by the war. ukraine answering the call will air sunday on july 3 at 7:00 pm eastern and pacific on nbc. we want to thank you for letting us in your home for these truly extraordinary times and we are so grateful. .

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welcome to the beat. the top story in the u.s. is the devastating evidence that donald trump supported the armed overthrow of the u.s. government. incriminating eyewitness testimony which riveted congress and the nation is open man up new lanes. it builds a criminal evidence against trump and the former president after years of shockwaves, meltdowns and all kinds of public discussion, the new evidence is still drying reactions like this, stunning and shocking details with many speechless at the portrait of a truly unhinged president. the washington post reporting trump has had bad moments but few worse than hutchinson's testimony. we start with the words from one of trump top aides, former