♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ alaha, konichiwa and namaste. i'm john heilemann in for nicole wallace. what a week for her to be on vacation. from the completely unprecedented to highly unusual, we had another extraordinary moment. the united states attorney general merrick garland, a man

known to be loathed to deviate from past practice, a man known as kafrl, methodical and some even say plotting, came out and did something that he surely does not want to do. ee he addressed the fbi's search on monday in mar-a-lago, donald trump's private club and residence. garland spoke from the justice department just hours after the fbi field offers in cincinnati became embroil flood a tense armed standoff with the man who fired a nail gun while brandishing an ar-15-style weapon. the incident comes amid an alarming spike in threats on law enforcement and after the raid on mar-a-lago. garland's, the biggest moment of his address today announced a major move by the doj that the department had asked a court in south florida to unseal the search warrant that was the predicate for the fbi search of mar-a-lago on monday. let's watch merrick garland now. >> just now, the justice department has filed a motion in

the southern district of florida to unseal a search warrants and property receipt relating to a court-approved search that the fbi conducted earlier this week. that search was on premises located in florida belonging to the former president. the department did not make any public statements on the day of the search. the former president publicly confirmed the search that evening as is his right. copies of both the warrant and the fbi property receipt were provided on the day of the search to the former president's counsel who was on site during the search. the search warrant was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause. the property receipt is a document that federal law requires law enforcement agents to leave with the property owner. the department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former

president's public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances and the substantial public interest in this matter. >> that move by the department of justice and by its leader merrick garland comes amid widespread calls certainly by the right and even by some on the left for greater transparency and when the department of justice's move on monday was met with intense controversially and many questions by many people around the country. garland went on after making that news and said that he had a three-part addendum, three things that he normally would not want to be out in public saying, but that he felt was important to say. the first was that he personally approved the warrant to allow the donald trump residence in florida, second that the doj takes these things very seriously and that the nature of the warrant was limited in scope and issued a full-throated defense of his department, the fbi and federal law enforcement implicitly reacting to the

tirades and the extreme rhetoric coming from the far right. notably, garland did not mention the standoff in cincinnati. many people thought he might. he was, we should note, one of the things that many people thought would be potentially the trigger for the position to come forward today to make this unexpected statement to the department of justice and we still do not know what the motivation of that armed man in cincinnati is. we'll keep you posted on that, but for now a lot of news to address here. so joining us, fantastic panel. new york times justice department reporter katie benner and new york bender, new york times political correspondent, andrew weissmann, former doj prosecutor and barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney and now law professor at the university of michigan. the collective i.q. on this panel is vast and the experience even vaster and thank god you guys are all here to help us understand what's happened today. i want to the start with you, barb mcquade just because you

and andrew have the lawing di degrees and i don't know if bender has one, but i know you know what you're talking about. just first address your reaction to what happened today in the simplest terms and we knew that merrick garland was going to make a statement. a lot of people wondered what he was going to say. tell us what you heard and what it means. >> well, it's really extraordinary that merrick garland would say anything at all be the justice department neither confirms or denies the existence of an investigation, but i think he felt he was kind of pushed into this by the publicity that donald trump raised about the search and he even mentioned that, that it wasn't the justice department that raised this issue publicly. it was donald trump, and so in response to that firestorm he has done what the justice department always does which is to speak through its filings. so this is kind of a clever way of not violating the justice department policy, but by unsealing that search warrants and the return. now the public can see what it was, and i think the goal there

is to push back against these claims that evidence was planted or that this was a witch hunt or anything else. i think what we're going to find a search warrant that is by the book. everything is in order and an inventory that shows that they indeed took some documents out of there that donald trump was not entitled to have. >> andrew weissmann, yesterday when there were a lot of debates going on including on this program about the calls for transparency e some of us said you know what? there shouldn't be any additional transparency. the doj has a policy. the policy is you do not speak about ongoing investigations and it didn't do anybody any good. you yesterday came out and said yes, it's true. there is a policy, but the fact that donald trump revealed the existence of this search maybe could let merrick garland off the hook and open up a space for him to speak at a time when transparency would be good about the county. he did basically what you

advised and you didn't go in that much detail and it is what you were advocating yesterday. >> well, i won't give myself that much credit because i think that merrick garland did certainly as barb said, take advantage of the fact that it was the target of the search that actually made this public. >> i did give him that leeway and he did something very smart and he said we speak through court filings and we, the justice department are perfectly happy to and are moving to unseal it and that actually was quite a brilliant move because it basically says to donald trump, put up or shut up. you say there's wrongdoing here. well, you know what? do you want the american public to see what we filed or not? and they gave him an opportunity. they gave him the motion that was filed so he now has an

opportunity, the ball's in his court to object and to keep from the public what it is that happened. so i think that was a really smart move, and it also is consistent with general department of justice policy which is it will be that filing that actually does the bulk of the speaking. i do think there are a couple of things that merrick garland said that if you listen to carefully were subtle ways at pushing back on things. he did make reference to the fact that before he issued the search warrant was typical to try lesser means which is confirm tore of the moment that they had tried to do this by subpoena and that this was sort of a last effort that they were forced into by donald trump's actions. so i suspect with that affidavit that's unsealed we'll learn more about it. >> yeah. >> and the other thing that i thought was interesting is that he talked about the fact that donald trump's attorney was on the premises. >> right. >> and that is a way of sort of

cutting back on the idea that there was somehow planting of evidence. that, i always viewed as donald trump knows just how bad the situation is because he knows what he had there and one of the defenses could be, i didn't have it. the fbi put it there. well, merrick garland is saying your lawyer was present. knock it off. he said it in a much better way than i'm saying it rid now. >> a much less cable tv way and much more merrick garland way. you sent a tweet as soon as you came out and you made the point that you made a second ago was call trump's bluff. for people who don't understand the process is that the department asked the court to unseal. step by step here, now it is up to donald trump in a court filing either to object or consent, correct? that's what you mean calling his bluff. he can either say fine, i'm happy to have this out there in the public so everyone can see

how terrible it is and if he objects it's then him, the former president who is keeping transparency from happening. that's really the argument here and that's what the bluff calling is that you're pointing out. >> absolutely. that's right. so for the non-lawyers that's exactly right. it is the court that issued the warrant and the court has in front of it the warrant, the underlying affidavit and that's really the key which is all of the evidence and the whole story about what happened that was submitted that should be an fbi's agent saying what's under oath and the return which is what was found in the search and the court can unseal all of that, and so what merrick garland said is they filed a motion with the court to unseal all of those things, but obviously, the former president has standing to be heard as to whether he thinks that's

appropriate or not. i do think it puts the former president in a really tough position if he wants to object to it after, you know, raising drawn about all of the wrongdoing when it is now the department that wants to be transparent about what happened here, but now the next step that we will hear is probably the court setting a deadline for the foreign president to submit something and then the court will decide the motion. >> i'll ask barb because you're both equally qualified to answer it and i want to let her get in here. how long will it be, barb, before we get an answer on this, whether it will be unsealed or not? what kind of time line do you imagine unfolding over the coming hours, minutes, days? >> in most scenarios when the government files a motion to unseal it's unopposed and it's almost instantly to just turn it over because it is the

government who requested the sealing. there is a presumption that court documents are public and they're only sealed if there is a necessary law enforcement purpose for sealing it. you don't want to have it on the public record before you go execute the search warrant, for example, because that might tip off the property owner that you're on your way and they might destroy evidence, but once you've executed the search, if there's not an ongoing reason for it to be unsealed, typically to gets sealed right away. donald trump could have some interest in keeping it seal at least in the short term. if there's some personal information or other kinds of things that he would like to keep it. i fully expect the sdwrouj keep the motion to unseal and maybe it's a few days to give lawyers time to address it. >> not going to be a few days. we got breaking news on this which the court has said how long they have, it is until 3:00 tomorrow. >> beautiful. even faster. >> we're moving on the fast

track. andrew weissmann looks happy with that. he has a big smile on his face. justice delayed is justice denied. let's get to it here and find out -- you call a bluff in poker you find out pretty quick what the outcome is and we'll find out quickly, one way or the other. katie, i want to ask you before we get to the reporting, andrew talked about the fact that "the new york times," a couple of journalistic institutions are just killing it on this story and advancing the ball very quickly before we had merrick garland come out today and knew that he was going to come out we thought we would spend a lot of time on the show going over how much more we know now than we knew 24 hours ago and now there's this news that's taken up some of that space, but before i get to you breaking the news about the times break the news, you breaking the news about the subpoena for the search warrant, and i want to ask you at this hour, at this minute what youio know about the

deliberations, if anything, the deliberations inside the doj that played out on the course of this day that led merrick garland to make the statement that he made and making the move that he took. >> the i think the deliberations that would have led to this move is to contrast what happened today under what happened under the previous administration when donald trump would attack the justice department. you saw that attorney general jeff sessions was largely silent and never defended the men and women of the justice department. he was afraid of losing his job and he was under threat of donald trump and you saw how much power trump had over the department and you did not see a robust defense on the mren and women of the department and fbi. here, you're seeing something very different and you can't help, but think that was part of the calculation which was the fbi particularly and the men and women of the department and even the magistrate judge has come under attack that these people's

motive should not be questioned and it is up to the attorney general when is responsible for the department who has final say, and the buck stops with him and make a statement, and it is i, attorney general merrick garland, and now the world will see the document and you can see for themselves whether or not i acted responsibly. >> as to sealed search warrant one, the fire will serve a cope of the motion on counsel former president trump. on august 12, 22 not great with calibers. they am file whether it will oppose to cob seal and signed by bruce e. reinhardt entered into effect, this date. andrew, what do you imagine. i want to ask you the question i

just asked katie. it was notable. merrick garland is normally a guy who is on type. he's a punctilious man. he came out half an hour later. what do you imagine it was like inside the halls of doj. i know what it was like around the discussions with comey. chaos in the building people running from the fbi to doj and the deputy attorney general and attorney general conferring back and forth and all kinds of stuff happening and a lot of chaos there. is that how you imagine it played out in the normally strained and restrained world of merrick garland as i said earlier, that i'm certain he did not want to do? >> well, i sort of break it down into two components. i think that the big picture decision was whether they were going to move to unseal the warrant and the underlying

affidavit, and i think that probably was discussed for a couple of days and i think that's the big picture. i don't see that being caused a slight minute delay in coming out and then exactly what he would say about who spoke first in the fact that the department didn't speak. donald trump spoke. the issue about you typically do a search warrant after trying other things. i think all of the ways in which merrick garland was thinking what can i say that is within my ethical norms and feel appropriate. i can see a lot of that back and forth. this is what they say about what is a camel? it is a horse designed by committee, and i can see what exactly he was going to say. and there are a lot in that kitchen tinkering with it and it

came out just fine, and i think the key here is not the tea leaf reading on it was getting the actual affidavit in support of the warrant. i think that's going to tell us everything that we need to know and have been asking for in the last few days. >> i think anybody who has ever worked in a government bureaucracy of any kind, know that things tend to get bogged down. mike bender, i want to go to you here and get back to this question about one of the biggest pieces of news that came out over the course of the last 18 hours, this in "the new york times" in your paper the headline, subpoena preceded search warrant in push to retrieve material from trump addressing one of the main questions from the last couple of days, why did they feel they had to go this far rather than get it through a negotiation or subpoena. turns out there was a subpoena.

former president donald j. trump received a subpoena and he had failed to turn over earlier in the year when he returned a box of material he had improperly taken with him upon moving out of the white house. two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators believe remained at mar-a-lago indicated they were so sensitive in nature and related to national security that the justice department had to act. mike, you're a political reporter and someone who knows and has written a book about donald trump and his reelection campaign and you know what it's like about in trump world and talk about this reporting itself, but also what you know or what you can reasonably speculate about how this whole thing has unfolded in the context of the president's role and what trump world is that it's a much smaller place than it was before and how they were meeting this and the decision to defy a subpoena, and how much the president would have been involved in that. who he's getting advice from and

all of these questions are on the tanl. >> yeah. that's right. a useful way to bfrng what is think inside trump world, the decision-making process is what you saw in the afternoon, and he was the frustrating kid in class who you want to tell the answer, but makes you show all of the work. merrick guard are garland will go by the book and that's what he said today. he'll trust the process to get -- so as not to jeopardize his end result. that is not how trump world operates here, and this is a former president who has treated every legal problem he's had look a public relations problem. both impeachments as well as the january 6th committee and now this. he is trying to win the moment, and i think the and giving

little thought to what comes next. i think it's helpful to understand how we get to the point where the fbi feels they need to search his home and you know, set a new precedent on doj behavior. >> katie, i'm going to read you a little bit from the wall street journal had a big piece on this where the headline here was fbi request for trump document was started with breezy charts and someone familiar with the papers told investigators there may be still more classified documents in the private club after the national archives retrieved boxes earlier in the year. people familiar said, they had doubts that the trump team was being truthful. another person said. this question that begins with someone familiar with the stored papers told investigators is one of the big things we're talking about. there's clearly a ton of

paranoia in trump world about the possibility of an informant and that someone flipped on donald trump. i'm curious on what kind of insight that you have a, that reporting which has been out there in a couple of different places and there was human intelligence that led down this path and that there is this wide-ranging freakout and not just in the president's brain which is a place to have known to freak out, but around donald trump that there's a traitor among them. >> well, i don't know that i would look at this as an informant. i think it's clear that the justice department has interviewed people related to the national archives problem. we saw national archives, keep in mind they had requested documents as far back adthis year and they realized there was classified information on this and notified the justice department and they wanted to conduct interviews. i don't think that conducting an interview and people complying with the request for information

from the justice department is the same as being an informant. i think that that kind of language does feed that paranoia, but i don't think it's necessarily accurate. to your point, though, the department would want to exhaust all methods of receiving information from mar-a-lago and from donald trump and they would want to pursue all methods in terms of acquiring information to figure out exactly what they might be looking for because i think that andrew, barb and others on the show pointed out that when you asked somebody to apply for a search warrant you have to be able to show the court that there's a good chance that the information would be there and you would not know that unless you do things like conduct interviews. >> i want to go to the rest of what garland said today because the news was -- we'll ask the court to unseal the warrant. he then went on and we were talking around the notion that this was the place where there was a lot of wordsmithing going on. merrick garland would have loved

to have stuck to longstanding policy and has incited the furies, specially on the right and even among some who are not on the right and who are concerned and want to understand what's going on and the pressure was building over the course of this week and in addition to making the news that he made he gave us a three-part addendum. i think we have that part of what he said in sound that we can play a clip of that. is that right? we've got it? if we got it where he defends the agents and talks about some other points he wants to make. let's play that. >> let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the fbi and justice department agents and prosecutors. i will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. the men and women of the fbi and the justice department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. every day they protect the american people from violent crime, terrorism and other

threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. they do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. i am honored to work alongside them. >> merrick garland was someone that barack obama wanted to put on the supreme court and one of the reasons why was because people have often said that garland had an obama-like temperament and you can see that he's pissed and a little hot there and rightly so. barb, in addition to this he addressed implicitly reporting that suggested that he might not have been the person who approved the search. he came out right at the top and said i personally approved it and in this case, he addressed some implicit very explicitly and went after the whole chorus

of those on the right. republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. people in the online world who had been baying for the last few days, attacking the fbi, making up stories about planted evidence, claiming as donald trump did that none of his people were allowed to be there even though as andrew weissmann pointed out before, not only is he there, she's on tv saying high was there. >> talk to me about the degree to which -- america only going this far, it was not watt what the justice department was doing. you would push per peblg garland to the point that he if critics from the justice department about the planting of evidence completely baseless things and even that attack we had earlier

today at the fbi office and we don't be whether it's relet'sed and that's the kind of thing that you expect. we saw it on january 6th where president biden expressed his displeasure and some of his followers became violent. i think merrick garland felt a responsibility to stand up for the fbi and not that their feelings are hurt and besmirched their reputations and this brings with it very serious harms. one is the ability of the fbi to do their jobs all over the country in every case they're dealing with right now and their believability by members of the public and the other is their safety. the idea that people are calling for violence against the fbi because of these false claims i think he felt the need to speak out because in his silence trump and his supporters were allowed to exploit that vacuum and fill it with their own narrative. so i think it's very important

for merrick garland to stand up and give the counter. i'm sure there are some people out there who will never believe anything other than the trump view of the world, but to the extent there are moderate people in the world who can be convinced based on logic and facts, i think they probably did want to hear what merrick garland had to say about this because sometimes silence is seen as agreement and so he needed to come back and state very strongly that none of these things are true. >> andrew, interesting that if we got closer to this 2:30 time many people thought that what was going on in cincinnati with this standoff with this guy who is armed, who fired off a nail gun and armed with another weapon in body armor. we have no idea why he's there. we can't draw any inference over the rhetoric of the last few days is what drove him there and we'll have to wait and find out about that, but there was speculation that with the fbi under assault that that was part of the context that led garland to step out. he did not address it and did

not say a word about it from the podium, but i think it's reasonable to think that that is part of the context and there is a lot of concern in federal law enforcement up to and including the head of the fbi and that this might turn out to be connected in some way. you said in your twitter be anymore, you asked the question. would they feel comfortable, and garland stayed away from it presumably because he doesn't know until the day of and today is the day to go forward. >> he did address it implicitly and he would be concerned about the civil liberties of that individual and he's not going to talk about a person who is charged in the middle of this

situation, but by dfrding his people and to me that is what you look for in a leader. barb was u.s. attorney and she would defend herr office and garland would defend his people when there are claims ever planting evidence which are wholly fabricated. that is a way of trying to lessen the volume -- lower the volume of the talk on the far right and from the foreign president and is addressing that in a merrick garland way, and i will say the final thing about merrick garland is he's probably the best exhibit for rectitude. he reminds me of when the current president was accused of being a socialist and he said, folks, do i look like a

socialist? he exudes rectitude and someone who is following the rule of law, and i think it's really commendable for him to be out there speaking. i think he had a brilliant move in putting it to donald trump to say do you oppose unsealing and his speaking and being heard and for the american people to see him and not just at the anonymous name, but to get some experience with him is very, very useful because he's a wondererful person. >> mike bender, i mentioned before that barb and andrew weissmann had law degrees and they had the legal experience. you win the prize who spent the most time in trump world and it's a booby prize in some ways and it gives you unique insight. what do you imagine, as you can hear the buzz of the right-wing mind trying to figure out what

to make of what garland said? what is our messaging strategy now. we have to buy prime time. we have to figure it out and how we will attack garland and how we'll undermine him and spin up more conspiracy theories? >> what do you imagine in the trump world who has been saying so many things in the last few days. >> yeah. i think that trump world feels like they're winning right now i mean, if you take a step back here and commending merrick garland for coming out and speaking and addressing this issue. let's not lose sight of the fact of the time taken for him to do that and it's a fair question in due time of whether that was a miscalculation, right? and then on the third day merrick garland spoke. the thing that you talked about

all happened on minute. they could have gone on to and the fbi has taken on a considerable amount of water and criticism over those few days and we talk about the frustration that was visible on camera with him today. implicit in that is one of the things he was talking about, and the process they've gone through and the steps they've taken in reading between the lines and they were trying to avoid a spectacle, right? but we're talking about donald j. trump who will turn everything into a spectacle. that's not necessarily criticism. that's his modus operandi here and it appears the justice department was not ready for the onslaught that trump and maga world and this newly reformed -- newly reconstructed republican party on donald trump has pushed on him in the last few days. >> i do not know if the reporting is true that the timing of this was part of the

calculation of the timing of the search was they wanted to do it while trump was in new york and they thought somewhat that would lessen the media circus. if that was not part of their thinking they do not understand donald trump. everyone is staying with us. we're not going to let them go anywhere. much more on this very, very busy news day including a bit of irony we're learning this afternoon. donald trump signed into law a bill that could have prison time. >> from their lips to god's ears. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. do not go anywhere. i personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter. second, the department does not take such decision lightly. where possible, it is standard practice to seek less-intrusive means as an alternative to a

search or to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken. y search that is undertaken.

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♪ wayfair you've got just what i need ♪ we are back with our panel and i want to start out by saying although a lot has happened today the key questions in this still remain, and i turn, as i have been doing embarrassingly to the late andrew weissmann who lastity in had a couple of tweets and has been reinforcing this point over and over again. key questions for trump and republicans to answer, why did trump steal a boatload, another point that you refer to is a crapload, although you used a different word, why did he lie

about having returned them all and what did he plan to do with them? that's still the big question, right, andrew? we are about to see the warrant. we'll see where we all end up there, but those questions are the pertinent questions and no one on donald trump's team or anybody really in the republican has come close to answering them. >> you know, one of the things that donald trump is very good at doing is monopolizing the conversation. this reminds me and they recognized this when you are a trial lawyer and representing the government, any day that the defense has the jury thinking about the prosecution table and the agents and what did the prosecution do is a day that the prosecution is losing and the defense is winning and conversely, the prosecution wants to have you focus on the defense table. well, you know, one of the things that donald trump is very good is at getting everyone to

focus gee, isn't this outrageous that the department of justice followed the rule of law and then speculating about improp rieties whatsoever. the issue was not merrick garland, the department of justice or the court system. all of that, there's no reason to think that any of that is not totally in keeping with what should be done. the real issue is why did the president have classified documents at mar-a-lago? why did he not return all of the documents which i think is what we are soon going to get the chapter and verse on and what was he planning on doing with those documents or what did he do with those documents? those are the real questions, and you know, there's somebody who can answer these questions. donald trump, and he hasn't said a word about those key questions. >> barb, there's been a lot of speculation over the past couple of days about, you know, is

there a world in which given overclassification that the doj would have gone to this length to try to get back some classified document that's not of maybe of that much significance and not something that's incredibly scandalous, that it's an archives thing and donald trump has them and who knows why he has them and let's go back and get them. other people have said there's no way merrick garland would have approved a search that would create this kind of firestorm that in some way would have ignited something approaching the fueling of a civil war-like situation where the republican party has turned against the federal law enforcement in a very straightforward way, in a very loud and unequivocal way. is there any world where you can imagine where what we learned in this case is that trump is able to say, yeah, it was a classified document, but who cares? it's not that big a deal? or is it just on the face of it

that this is going to turn into a big deal? >> i think there is no world that they would push this if these documents did not contain information that was critically important to keep confidential. the definition of classified information was information, the disclosure of which would cause grave damage to the national security of the united states. there's been some reporting that there were even top-secret documents in here and that is a subset of classified documents that is a much rarer set and involves the most secret of information and in fact, the definition there is that the release would cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the united states, and so this seems like something they've pushed and pushed for months. first they ask for it voluntarily and then they asked a subpoena and then they had to go in and get those documents. i don't think this was on the menu of what was on the white house mess on january 19 of 2021. these are things related to national defense information.

i can't begin to speculate what they might be, but these are the kinds of secrets that would harm our national security if they were released and they can't be out there in the ether where they can fall into prying eyes. there was a woman who was a chinese national who was caught trying to steal secrets from mar-a-lago. you can't have this stuff lying around in a place where the public comes and goes. >> that's a relatively benign explanation that it falls into the wrong hands or donald trump is trying to place it into the wrong hands for political gain or personal gain. katie, you've been crushing this story ever since monday, breaking news on the hour, basically. one of the big questions in your mind now, and in the reporter's notebook, of what you're trying to nail down in the next 12 hours, what are you looking at? >> there are questions swirling around what compelled jay brett to the feel he had to go to

mar-a-lago to do an in-person visit. why was he there? what was he looking for? why did he feel that he would find information? i think that that is still an open question and i think there are still open questions about the sort of interviews that the justice department conducted with witnesses in addition to issuing a subpoena, and i think there's a larger philosophical question and less of a breaking news reporter question, a question about what is really unusual here. you sort of speak to this when you ask barb the question of don't knock our socks off, it strikes me how much donald trump has been able to control this narrative. that we are talking about whether or not the justice department is acting unusually and not really focusing on just how unusual trump's behavior is. he has made representations to federal officials at time and again that he has given them something that he has not and they've felt they needed to

physically go to his home and obtain them. i know we have spoken about lou unusual trump is ever since he was elected president, but i think that reframing is really important and the justice department feels if you talk to current and former officials and people who worked for a long time on national security issues and they feel that they're acting within the letter of the law and that they're acting normally. that if anybody continued to withhold classified information time and again that they would take the step and that this was not unusual and it is their job to retrieve classified information whether or not it's information that the public thinks is really important. it was classified and they need to get it. they're curious about why people are not focusing on how unusual donald trump's behavior is in this situation and how he forced their hand. >> bender, i hess tate to move into the political, but i can't help it. the trump people have thought that this week was good for them.

they have. they have ron desantis people saying we can't run against trump. the whole party is for trump now from a political standpoint, donald trump thinks this is a been for him and he was the one that disclosed this and he disclosed it for a reason and he disclosed to to strengthen his political hand and ignite the federal law enforcement, and it's unprecedented and rid out of the trump playbook and do they wake up tomorrow and still feel like they're winning after today? >> yeah. i think they are feeling very, very good right now and it's worth here pausing and taking a step back and considering, you know, some of the things you just said that we have gotten to a point in american politics where the fbi can search a former president's home and that is viewed as having positive political ramifications for that former president.

and not just positive, i mean, there are folks around trump who feel that this has reduced the pressure on him to announce an early bid for the white house and part of the speculation has been to send a message to the mike pence's and mike pompeos that trump is the leader of the party. well, we saw that this week that all of those folks were lining up behind him and offering statements of support, and this is a consequence of the power donald trump has put through the republican party. the significance here is he's demanded such a level of loyalty from republicans that they will -- they will immediately describe him as political prey here during an fbi search instead of a potential criminal target. >> right. >> i have to tell everybody here, the people will have to

start getting their heads around the fact that donald trump is indicted and still running for president and still running for a nomination. it could happen and it's going to be yet another place that we'll go into uncharted territory. hopefully you will in along with us because you make me feel better when i'm on uncharted territory. thank you very much for being on this crazy journey for us today. barb mccade sticking around. citizen trump may have a regret or two for something president trump did in office. that's next. trump did in office. that's next. service in just a few clicks. it's so easy. and more customers today are relying on their cars advanced safety features, like automatic emergency breaking and lane departure warning. that's why our recalibration service is state of the art. we recalibrate your vehicle's camera, so you can still count on those safety features. all right, we're all finished. >> customer: thank you so much. >> tech: thank you. don't wait--schedule now. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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this was not just extreme carelessness with classified material, which is still totally disqualifying. in my administration, i'm going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. we also need the best protection of classified information. that is the worst situation. >> totally disqualifying. keep that in mind as we go forward here. if you go back a little bit, though, after years of saying all the stuff you just saw, but her emails, lock her up, all those attacks, donald trump, in 2018, signed a law that increased the penalty for the, quote, unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material from one year to five years in prison, and changed the status of that

violation from a misdemeanor to a felony. turns out, that decision, that move by trump, could ultimately be what costs him dearly in the end, something that phil bump points out today in his column in the "washington post." he joins us now and barbara is back as well. phil, gives the quick summary of the piece you wrote today, which -- i saw it, and i thought, this is really interesting, and now it seems even more interesting because this could be bad news for trump. self-inflicted harm. >> right. what essentially happened is there's a section 702 of the fisa act, gave the government all sorts of power to do surveillance, but it was expiring at the end of 2017, and there was this push to renew it, and as part of that legislation, actually authored by devin nunes, who was a hard core trump loyalist even then, they inserted this line that increased the penalty for retaining classified documents from one year to five years.

donald trump, after hemming and hawing, because he was on the outs with the intelligence community, he ended up signing that stipulation and now it's fascinating because you see out there in conservative media, one of the most fervent defenders of donald trump is kash patel, who worked for devin nunes at the time so trump is relying on kash patel to defend him on his ownership of classified materials now that this is a stipulation that he could potentially face five years in prison. >> barb, we were talking about the fact that there have been examples of people who have run afoul of this -- of the appropriate way of handling classified material. sandy berger, bill clinton's national security advisor, but there was never the notion that you might spend five years in prison for this, at least in prior cases. talk about whether this really is something that would -- with trump having gone this far, whether you could imagine a

scenario in which donald trump, if he's found guilty, actually ending up having to go to jail for a not trivial amount of time. >> so, the penalty, as we just heard, has gone from one year to five years. ordinarily, sentences are determined not based on the statutory maximum but based sentencing guidelines. did this genuinely threaten national security? the content of these documents is going to matter. the level of willfulness matters. there are a number of facts but the court is no limited to a misdemeanor, and it could sentence up to five years. that would be the statutory cap. i'd be surprised if anybody got that much time, but i think any prison time for a person who's running for president is a very substantial amount of prison time. >> barb, with those kind of -- with the maximum at five years, it's hard to imagine pleaing yourself down to probation on that case, even if all the factors are cutting the right

direction for you and you're a former president, hard to imagine you could bargain your way out of doing any prison time. maybe i'm wrong about that. >> yeah, it's not impossible. again, you know, the guidelines would matter, mitigating factors would matter, aggravating factors would matter, but no doubt the stakes have gotten higher because of that change in the law that donald trump himself signed. so, a phrase about karma comes to mind. >> phil, do you -- a phrase about karma. yes indeed. phil, do you imagine that any of these -- any of the -- the fact that trump did this thing that we're talking about here, has ever come into his mind at all as he was deciding that, hey, you know, it's okay for me to keep classified documents down at mar-a-lago? it seems like a lack of awareness maybe about the recent history. if you were aware of what you just did, you might think that would change your behavior, but that's not the way trump rolls. >> yeah, i mean, the false assumption is not that donald trump has an intimate familiarity with the letter of the law. i do think, though, that this is something that came up before, and it came up even before he

left office. i think it's safe to assume that the predicate for this was this outrage on the right over hillary clinton and trying to, you know, make it so this was a more problematic thing for officials, so there certainly was some awareness among his allies that there was a reason for doing this. but he'd be -- this is something that he should have been aware of. there were questions even before he left office about the retention of classified documents and now obviously it's come back to bite him. >> all right, phil, that's a story about geese and ganders. what's good for the goose, good for the gander. donald trump may be about to learn that. thank you both. more on today's breaking news right after this quick break. on today's breaking news right after this quick break. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our

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search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken. third, let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the fbi and justice department agents and prosecutors. i will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. the men and women of the fbi and the justice department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. every day, they protect the american people from violent crime, terrorism, and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. they do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. i am honored to work alongside them. >> hey, everybody, it's now 5:00 here in gotham city, i'm john heilemann in again for nicole wallace. those are the three big points made this afternoon by attorney

general merrick garland after he made huge news breaking announcement that he had filed a motion -- the doj had filed a motion in federal court in south florida to take the mar-a-lago search warrant and make it public. we now know from that court that donald trump has until 3:00 p.m. tomorrow to either object or consent to having the details of that warrant made public. but of special focus this afternoon, the fact that garland decided to offer the addenda that he did offer, and particularly that third point where, with evident emotion, fiery, angry, he stood four square with the men and women of his department and federal law enforcement in general who have faced such a brutal attack over the past few days from many people on the right and especially those people in trumpworld. before garland's speech this afternoon, fbi director christopher wray said, essentially, the same thing. >> as to the issue of threats, i will say that i'm always

concerned about violence and threats of violence against law enforcement. any threats made against law enforcement, including the men and women of the fbi, as with any law enforcement agency, are deplorable and dangerous. >> how concerned are you that after the raid, that could have emboldened or incentivized some of the same bad actors from january 6th doing something similar? >> again, violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter what anybody's upset about or who they're upset with. >> deplorable and dangerous, the threats he's talking about, director wray, they are not theory. they're real. they're increasing. they're on the rise in the wake of what happened at mar-a-lago, and then there's what happened in cincinnati today. two law enforcement sources briefed on the matter tell nbc news that a man entered an fbi field office there, fired a nail gun at law enforcement personnel. he then held up an ar-15-style rifle before driving away. after a highway pursuit, there

was a standoff that ended just moments ago. we don't know why that guy did that. there's no official motive yet. we have no idea whether the things that have happened over the past few days and the heated up rhetoric about law enforcement had anything to do with what that person did in cincinnati, but you have to consider the broader context. you just heard fbi director wray talking about the surge in threats to federal agents and justice department personnel in the aftermath of the mar-a-lago search. those stuff aren't the stuff of dark web message boards, although they certainly are there. a 30-second google search will turn up plenty, phrases like "lock and load" and civil war, even calls for assassinations, attorney general garland being one prominently named target. from the associated press, "on gab, a social media website popular with white supremacists and anti-semites, one poster said he was awaiting the call to mount an armed revolution." all it takes is one call, and

millions will arm up and take back this country. it will be over in less than two weeks, that post said. another gab poster implored others, "let's get this started." this unelected, illegitimate regime crossed the line with their gestapo raid. it's long past time the lib socialist filth were cleansed from american society. joining us now, pete wehner, senior fellow at the trinity forum, also msnbc legal analyst tally weinstein. she worked as a law clerk for judge merrick garland and also former fbi counterintelligence agent peter strzok joining me and with me onset, john harris, founding editor of that great publication known as politico. i want to start just with you, peter strzok, and just give me a sense of given what happened today, i said this week has been fill with unprecedented and unusual activities, and things that we have not really ever

seen before, pushing the country into uncharted territory. watching merrick garland up there doing the thing i don't think he really wanted to do, but feeling the need to, what did you -- how did you assess the importance of what he said and why he said it and where we go from here? >> well, i think it was extraordinarily important. i mean, it's clear that attorney general garland is a man who hews to the institution and the traditions of the department of justice, and i did not expect that he would ever get up and give a speech or pronouncement where he went through all the facts surrounding the search of mar-a-lago earlier this week, but i thought what he did very well was sort of, in a broad sense, and he didn't speak for long, but he said a lot during that speech, essentially that the department of justice was going to adhere to its norms, that they would let court documents speak for the case, but that they were removing to unseal both the search warrant attachments a and b, which list both of the places to be searched, as well as items to be seized, and then finally the inventory, the return that listed all the items that have

been seized, and put the ball in donald trump's court. so, as far as he did in showing as much as he could, also placed on president trump to essentially put up or shut up. you have these documents. you can release them if you want. now the judge has said to both the former president as well as doj to confer and to decide by tomorrow afternoon whether or not they agree, and that he also laid out those three things that you pointed out, that this was a measured, escalated step, that he absolutely was the person who approved it, and that finally took up a defense of both the fbi and the doj that i think is really critical that he did that in light of the absolutely, you know, astounding and irresponsible statements that are coming out of congressmen and even senators, and certainly all the enablers that swirl around in the trumpworld. >> you worked as a law clerk for merrick garland when he was judge garland. i'm curious, given your insight into his psyche and the widely

noted moderation, his sobriety and all the things that would have kept him from ever wanting to make a statement like he made today. talk about what you think it was in the course of these few days that would have weighed most heavily on his mind and drove him to the point where he decided to go out, make this statement, do what the department did, and say what he said on behalf of federal law enforcement. >> well, you know, i think that merrick garland's demonstrated here some attributes, some aspects of his personality and his mind that were not always visible because he was a judge for so long, but his agility, his responsiveness, and i think that, you know, he did a couple of things that were really important and go to the heart of who he is. first of all, he's a leader, and he stood up for the men and women who work for him at the fbi and the department of justice. he took responsibility for what they do, and he said that he

would protect them and that he honors their work. but beyond that, i think that he understands that we are in a new era where the rule of law is being attacked, when you talk about the execution of a search warrant as a raid, even before you get to ugly words like gestapo. that is an attack on the rule of law, not just on the men and women who work in the institutions that uphold the rule of law, but on what makes this country what it is, and i think that he found an incredibly agile and creative way, in a very short amount of time, to say that, this is what we do. this is how we do it. and he took an opportunity that really mr. trump gave him, because often, the reason that you don't make disclosures as a prosecutor in the course of investigation is to respect the privacy of the target, the subject, the would-be defendant, the person on whom a search warrant was executed at his

premises in this case, but what he said is, let's take what mr. trump did to its logical conclusion. he disclosed that this happened, and so now, operating within the rules, i think that our motion to seal these documents is no longer necessary. >> so, pete, you have been worried about what used to be thought of as a pretty rock-ribbed conservative. you've obviously been upset about what's happened to your former party or maybe your -- clinging to it in some ways under donald trump. you've written about the radicalization of the right many times. i want to play a little bit of sound here of what we've heard over the past couple days from the right-wing media sphere. i mean, there's been a lot of stuff that's been very troubling that's been said by elected officials, by aspiring elected officials, by candidates, but it's -- none of it is as bad as what we're hearing in the right-wing ecosystem, the echo chamber. let's take a listen to a few of the voices that have come out and some of the incredibly

radical things they've said since the mar-a-lago search. >> and i'm going to tell you something. i'm not into conspiracies. i'm not into anti-government rhetoric. this is the first time in my lifetime that i would say, i am deathly afraid for donald trump. i would not put assassination behind these people. >> we're beyond a banana republic. we're into tin pot dictatorer third world stuff. >> america is under attack. >> we have got to change our federal government. the way our federal government has gone, it's like what we thought about the gestapo. >> the secret police that we have seen in totalitarian regimes. >> if you're associated with donald trump, you better cross all your i's and dot all your t's because they're coming for you with the full force of the federal government. >> so, pete, i'll read something you wrote in a second, but i first just want to hear what you have to say about what you just heard and just how not just

pernicious but how dangerous it is. >> yeah. it's reckless, unbelievably reckless, but it's ominous, and it is dangerous, because words have the capacity to inspire, and they have the capacity to pull down, and they also have the capacity to promote violence. we know that from history, and we know that from january 6th of 2021. so, to use that kind of rhetoric, which is sort of borderless in its corrupting effects, it's unbelievable and it's happening on several levels. it's happening on the level of trump supporters, on these message books, but then as you said, on the right-wing ecosystem, and then among lawmakers, members of congress and senators. so, that kind of synergy, that kind of interaction and interplay, is really explosive and dangerous stuff. >> you know, john harris, you and i have been covering all this stuff -- >> good long while now.

>> -- for a good long while. just to take one example, the idea that the house minority leader, many people assume that he's very likely the next speaker of the house, that his reaction to a search of the former president's house, an extraordinary thing, no doubt, but that, you know, he knows -- kevin mccarthy knows what it takes to get a search warrant in general, what kind of legal review, the likelihood that the attorney general would have been involved, that a federal judge had to rule, all of that. that within his instantaneous reaction was effectively to declare war on the united states attorney general. i don't know that i've ever seen anything quite like that in our time covering politics, and we have both seen some pretty extreme stuff. >> what we see is the sort of hide of politics gets pulled back. these kind of -- this kind of rhetoric, these kind of sentiments, pete mentioned history. actually, there's long history to this kind of rhetoric. you know, go back to the john birch society, the 1990s, the

conspiracy theories that flowed from the waco compound raid or ruby ridge, but it was always beneath the surface and then there was a respectable body of opinion that really distanced itself from those sort of paranoid strains in our politics and of course distanced themselves from the instinct for violence. what's so striking now is that there is -- there's no gap between that kind of lurid fantasy, paranoid fantasy world and people who are in positions of authority and respect and real influence. it is unprecedented, as you say. >> and peter strzok, i just want to ask you, as someone with a lot of experience at the federal bureau of investigation, i mean, it sounds crazy to say this. i mean, i never thought i'd be in a position to ask somebody, like, fbi agents are trained professionals, and many of them are pretty tough. i'm just curious what the tenor of it is to be in the fbi right now and what -- how these

agents, these law enforcement officials, how they are seeing their place in the world being totally different from anything they've ever had before, under attack, under assault by a party and a movement that has historically been, well, we back the blue, love federal law enforcement, that it's been the biggest -- ostensibly, at least, rhetorically, the biggest supporters of law enforcement, to find themselves being the subject of this kind of rhetoric that sometimes directly encourages and often implicitly encourages violence against them. i just -- what's -- what is the atmosphere like among your former colleagues? >> well, i think, john, it's got to be tremendously challenging right now. i mean, most agents and analysts go into work, they put their head down, they do their job and they work to secure the american people. but at the end of the day, you go home to news. you go home to family. you go home to neighbors, the people that you're talking to on a day in, day out basis are listening to the news and hearing these things and there's no way, however hard you try and just focus on the work in front you, that you're not hearing

about marjorie taylor greene selling t-shirts to defund the fbi. you're not hearing people -- senators. senators suggesting that the fbi goes into a search site and maybe planted evidence. just because that's what the fbi does. there's no way that this isn't creeping around the edges of the conversation, of the awareness of all the good men and women of the fbi. and it's absolutely something that -- there's a sense of almost, you know, what can you do? what are you going to do? there's nothing other than going and doing your job well that you can do. and to have that happening at the same time you've got this just relentless attempt to undermine everything they're doing, whenever it comes only to the topic of donald trump, only to the topic of things that threaten him or those people around him. everything else is fine. but on that third rail, there's universal, you know, crazy statements and condemnation coming from the far right. and i think it is increasingly

challenging to sort of tune that out, and it's also impacting all the public that fbi investigators come into contact with on a day in, day out basis. >> harris, i come back to you, just because -- i ask this question with as fine a point as possible on it. occasionally, you hear people say, on these right-wing boards, there are people calling for civil war, and occasionally, in the more sober areas of our political discourse, you hear people say, you know, this could lead to civil war. and then you have some people that say, you know, we're actually in a civil war already. it's here. it's here. is that hyperbolic? >> well, it's a different kind of civil war. usually, it doesn't play out in violence, although i think as all our panelists have said, the possibility that, especially with disturbed, agitated minds that can respond to this rhetoric with violence, but i think we are in one where we've just fundamentally see the world in different ways. that we look at each other with

total contempt. we look at institutions that used to be revered institutions, and people speak with -- speak contemptuously of them, so in that sense, yes, we are in a civil war. >> yeah. i mean, i understand the -- shots have been -- >> also, let's remember, we're in a spasm in this long-term moment that we're in historically. a spasm. what i think merrick garland was doing was saying, exhale, everybody. you haven't seen the facts. if i have anything to do about it, you will see the facts, and hopefully bring this kind of agitation down until it flares again with something else. >> tali, i ask you whether you think that, you know, merrick garland has said many times that he is really just here to follow the law and to look and see if crimes are committed, that they're going to be prosecuted and that the department would speak with its actions and that was all there was to it. he made this decision today in a very direct way to address the right-wing attacks on federal law enforcement. in an implicit way, by saying,

yes, i was the one who approved the search warrant of mar-a-lago, he's responding to some media reports that suggested that maybe he was cut out of that decision. i'm curious about whether you think that this is a sign that garland has decided that he must, on some level, engage with the moment in a way that a pure, i'm going by the book, black-letter law, i'm just going to stick to policy and precedent, that that's just no longer operative anymore. that he realized the moment is too big, the danger is too real and he's trying to meet that moment in a slightly different way. >> i hope that that is exactly what it is, because, you know, i think that this idea that black-letter law or department policy or various statutory restrictions make it impossible for folks in law enforcement to

say anything about what they are doing is not only wrong, but it is dangerous. nothing he did today is actually a break with any written department of justice policy. on the contrary, there is policy that says that when something is of great public interest -- and this is the language he uses in that motion -- there is good reason to talk about it. he certainly didn't run afoul of anything like the rules that prohibit the disclosure of grand jury information or of classified information, and i think that, you know, over time, these various sources, reasons why you can't talk when you're a prosecutor or a federal agent, have led to a very sort of vague idea that you can't ever say anything, and critics of the rule of law have taken advantage. you know, they do all of the talking, and there's just silence at the other end. and when i say this is a new era, i think we all know that we are living in a time where even the public, you know, not just

donald trump and his allies, just expect to understand more and to know more, and you know, the people who have the podium can step up and educate without undoing their work, without crossing any ethical boundaries, without ruining investigations, that's what he showed today, and i hope that that's going to continue. >> all right. that's an incredibly difficult job right now. it's hard to be attorney general, but, man, it's much harder than it ever has been, at least in my lifetime. everyone on this panel, august as it is, brilliant as it is, is sticking around. after the break, we will all have more on the untenable atmosphere that led attorney general merrick garland to take the extraordinary step that he took today. "deadline white house" continues after this break, so please don't go anywhere. break, so pl don't go anywhere.

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given everything going on today and what merrick garland said about the attacks on law enforcement and how he forcefully rebutted them, we have been focusing a lot on the state of play in the republican party today, particularly their reflexive, incendiary reaction to the fbi's search at mar-a-lago. from our esteemed colleague, pete wehner, i referenced this earlier, wrote in "the atlantic" today, a very fine piece. "now they're calling for violence," is the headline. "clearly at this early stage, the responsible reaction to what the fbi did is to withhold judgment, to wait and see, to base one's assessment on the facts and the evidence as they become known. but such an approach is alien to the modern day gop. the entire incentive structure is to use language that is

intemperate, belligerent, conspiratorial, even crazed. this week has once again proved that there's no rhetorical line trump republicans won't cross, no outlandish charge they won't make. it's now all about one-upsmanship with each person trying to make a more freakish claim than the next." we are back with our panel and pete, i got to start with you. we were talking about this in the first hour. mike bender wrote a book about donald trump and his campaign in 2020. trump people think they're winning. it's not just that they -- that there's no limit and the incentive structure and all the things you say, all of which are true. it's that they think this has been great for them and they're going to wake up tomorrow thinking it's great for them too. i ask you, how do we come back from this? how do we get the party to step back from the brink and all the things you described vividly and others described vividly? what would change the incentive structure at this point? what's the way out? >> the most obvious way out is for them to lose elections because what we've tested the

proposition, is there anything other than losing power that will appeal to the conscience of the modern day republican party? and the answer is, no. we tested this again and again and again. january 6th, we saw it. we're seeing it now. and so what it requires is for people in this country to rise up and to vote the right way and to speak out and stand for truth and honor and what's right and good. the other thing i would say, john, this is just really important, i think, which is, that's all any of us can do. all we can do is what we believe to be right and true. and we don't know if it's going to succeed or not. we've got to hope it will. we have to do everything we can to make it that way. but we don't know that it will succeed. but that's not what we're responsible for. we're responsible as citizens of a republic to do the right thing. but, as it relates to the public party, if they think that this is the path to power, to take power and to hold power, they're going to do it. and there are no guardrails for

this party. it is the most malicious and malignant party, certainly in my lifetime. it is as malicious and malignant a party as we've seen in this country. >> pete, you're a serious christian and you take the moral components of politics very seriously. when you see the claims -- just claims that have -- about the fbi planting evidence at mar-a-lago, for which there's no basis whatsoever, donald trump saying, they wouldn't let my people observe the search process, when at the same time, his own lawyer is on television saying that she was present for the search. you see kevin mccarthy saying what he's saying. you see rand paul saying what he's saying. and then you have all the stuff in the crazy fever swamp, right? all of that, but i want to focus on those establishment republicans. if the thing in cincinnati had gone wrong today, and there had been fbi blood spilled, what

would -- what would the party have done then? what would it have thought then? what would it have said then? would there have been any sense of moral culpability or are we now in the post-1/6 era to the point where republicans, led by donald trump, just don't care if the words that they use end up with people dead? >> they wouldn't care. they'd try to change the subject. look, it's a party -- and i say this as somebody who's been a lifelong republican before trump, which is fundamentally nihilistic, and i think the way to understand this, john, is that donald trump -- and i'm seeing this clinically from afar, but i think it's pretty obvious -- is a sociopath, and his personality and his temperament, which was specific to him to begin with, is now essentially infected the entire party, and it has spread. the pathologies have spread. and when that happens, and you get that sort of nihilism combined with this, i don't know, institutional arsonist

mentality that simply wants to attack, that wants to tear down, and has no regard for truth, no trust in any institutions, there's no check on that right now, other than other people that have to stand up. but i think right now, given the current state of the republican party, that there's not much that can happen that is going to cause them to reflect, to stop, and certainly to reverse course. >> pete strzok, i want to read you a little bit of a story that just is new in "vice," which gets at this, the similar problem from a different angle. the head line is, "far-right extremists are violently threatening the trump search warrant judge," who we just heard from today when he told trump that he had until 3:00 tomorrow to respond to the doj's motion to make that warrant public. here's what "vice" has to say. "this is a piece of crap judge who approved fbi's raid on mar-a-lago, a user wrote on the pro-trump message board formally

known as thedonald. i see a rope around his neck, shades of mike pence on 1/6, responding, another user wrote, idgaf, which means, i don't give a -- anymore. name, address, put that -- all up here online. moments later, a different member replied with what appears to be reinhardt's current address, that's the judge, judge reinhardt, current address, phone numbers, previous addresses and names of possible relatives. in another post on the same message board, one user commented, let's find out if he has children, where they go to school, where they live, everything." i mean, that is a chilling thing, and again, anybody who wants to say, well, that's just the -- some crazy chat board, it's the internet, you know, anybody who wrote that stuff off on 1/6 saw what happened. so, pete, what -- what does the fbi do while it's under assault in this same way, now having to face this metastasizing threat

that runs not just to the fbi, not just to the deep state, but to federal law enforcement, state law enforcement, and the judiciary. that's the kind of world we're living in right now is the fbi even resourced to kind of handle the degree of threat that we're seeing right now? >> well, it's going to be a force to have to look at it and address it. those boards, i don't think people really recognize, because people are on twitter, they're on facebook. most folks aren't aware of the level of vitriol and violence when you talk about gab, when you talk about patriot.win, which replaced thedonald.win. there are scores of people who are engaged in not only violent rhetoric but providing the means to do so, and so we have a judge getting doxed. we have a gunman at the fbi cincinnati field office. these are not random threats. there is tangible action now that is going on as a result of that. and so, of course, the challenge for the fbi is, you know, we still do have the first amendment. people are allowed to say vile, hateful things, and that is

protected speech. but the challenge, one, where you draw the line between what is protected and what is leading and inciting violence in a legal sense, not just that we look and say, oh, it's bad, but two, how you find the resources to go on all of these different platforms and to try and get ahead of it it is extraordinarily difficult. and look, we were talking earlier in the show about how hard it was once upon a time to get to these conspiracy theories, but they've always been around. what's changed today is, you know, 40, 50 years ago, you might have a crazy conspiracy theory, but you'd have to look long and hard to try and find somebody else to talk about it with. right now, anybody can sit at their computer and find hundreds and thousands of like-minded crazy conspiracists who just feed of each other and get each other worked up, so from a law enforcement perspective, how do you get ahead of that? i mean, how do you even monitor it in realtime, let alone try and prevent something from happening in the future? it's an extraordinary challenge,

and i'm worried because we see it metastasizing, getting broader and worse, and i'm not sure there's any easy answer of how to tamp that down. >> tali, i'm not a lawyer, and i don't even play one on tv, and i understand what pete strzok said -- i think the first amendment is pretty -- interpreted in the broadest and most aggressive way possible. however, you go on a chat board and talk about putting -- saying you see a rope around a judge's neck and then start putting out the judge's address, phone number, names of possible relatives. maybe i'm wrong. is that -- could that possibly be protected speech? or is that one of those things that obviously falls on the wrong side? i hope to god that there's no court in the land that would look at that and say, yeah, that's protected free speech. that's fine. that seems like a direct threat to me. >> well, i think these are really fact-specific and hard

questions that really push the boundaries, because we are in a whole new landscape with what that kind of speech can incite, but you know, john, even before we go to the constitutional test and we talk about that, you know, like you, i tend to be a free speech absolutist. i think we do have to ask ourselves, what responsibility can various actors take to prevent that sort of thing? should social media companies, for example, be taking that down? when they see that. and i know that some do and others don't. and what can we do to stand up and say that that's not okay? and it's not just about, you know, online. my understanding is that that judge's synagogue has said that they will not be able to have services, religious services this weekend on shabbat because the threats to him have now really become threats to an entire community. that's really terrifying.

>> harris, i want to play some sound for you, because a thing happened on fox news this morning that i thought was kind of extraordinary. i've heard a lot of poisonous, rancid, disgusting, appalling stuff on right-wing media over the course of the last few days. this was a little different because it does get to the thing of how much this very extreme rhetoric has made its way into the mainstream discourse of republican leaders, including steve scalise, who was on "fox & friends" this morning and had a little colloquy with steve ducey. let's take a listen to that. >> whatever happened to the republican party backing the blue? and in particular, the 35 members of law enforcement, federal law enforcement, at the fbi? >> yeah, and frankly, we're very strong supporters of law enforcement, and it concerns everybody if you see some agents go rogue, and if you see an agency that doesn't have the right checks and balances at the top. >> steve, who went rogue? they were following a search warrant. >> we want to find that out.

we want to find that out and that's why we're asking these questions. >> it's not very often when i find myself cheering on ducey. like, go ducey. we've gone so far that even ducey is kind of challenging steve scalise. steve scalise says, you see some agents go rogue. the factual predicate for that is what, john? >> couple of things. we were talking earlier, you were asking, how does this end? i think this is one of the ways that it ends. there is, in fact, going to be a split within the conservative movement. like, you're going too far. you're going to places that i don't regard as what a true conservative would do, and that was a nice little exchange on that. it's striking because steve scalise, of all people, knows what happens when agitated minds become disturbed. he himself was a victim of violence. he could have been killed. happened just a half mile from my house where my son used to play baseball. so, it's really stunning how this all seems to be abstract to him. oh, whatever, it's just words,

it's just another day on fox news, when he, of all people, knows how real the possibility of violence is. >> i never want to put these things back and be focused on democrats and democratic messaging, but i got to say, there's so -- if democrats can't crack the code on how to say, these republicans are not pro-law enforcement, they are anti-law enforcement, the whole paradigm of republicans are pro -- back the blue and democrats are defund the police. if democrats can't solve that problem, man, they are missing a huge opportunity. >> john, but it's harder than you give credit for. in normal times, that would be the case. it would be easy. if you can't win this argument. but we're not in normal times. everything a democrat or a media commentator says is, in fact, more fuel for what's driving this. the dynamic driving this is contempt. contempt for institutions, contempt for the opposition, contempt for each other as fellow citizens. and so, it's not just a matter of coming up with the right rhetoric. all that does is, in its own way, provide more fire.

you have to denounce it. there has to be a difference between right and wrong. but the idea that it's easy to sort of win this argument and for good sense to prevail, i think, has been shown not to be true again and again and again. >> you're a wise man, john harris. that's why you're here. up next, we're going to take your wisdom and the wisdom of our panel down to florida for the reaction to the attorney general garland statement today from the disgraced, twice-impeached, coup-attempting, pathologically duplicitous former president. that's next. itous former presidt that's next. there's a monster problem and our hero needs solutions. so she starts a miro to brainstorm. “shoot it?” suggests the scientists. 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.

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vote yes on 27. just now, the justice department has filed a motion in the southern district of florida to unseal a search warrant and property receipt relating to a court-approved search that the fbi conducted earlier this week. that search was of premises located in florida belonging to the former president. the department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president's public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter. >> that's a remarkable, maybe necessary, certainly kind of clever piece of bluff-calling there, the step that attorney general and the justice department made today by deciding to move in federal court in south florida to unseal

the search warrant that the fbi used on monday when they wept to mar-a-lago. we've since learned that the judge in that case has ordered that donald trump and his team will have until 3:00 tomorrow to consent or object to the search warrant being made public. let's bring in nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard in west palm beach, florida, across the lagoon from mar-a-lago. you're near ground zero. what are the emanations like from mar-a-lago right now? i said a second ago, we didn't expect this from merrick garland. he made the move. a lot of people are glad that there's some transparency or going to be some transparency forthcoming, but there's also a clever piece of jiujitsu here, basically calling donald trump's bluff and saying, if you want to get this information out, mr. trump, all you have to do is just let it go forward. now ball's in your court. what are you hearing from trumpworld about what they're going to do? >> reporter: right. garland essentially cornered them here. i had the conversation just 48

hours ago with a source from trump's side who said, we will not release the search warrant. they have the copy of the search warrant. they have a copy of the property receipt. but i was told that they felt that the burden of transparency, in their words, was on the department of justice, that if the department of justice was going to go and seek this search warrant, go to a judge to have it executed, to go into the former president's residence, well, then they should tell the american public why and what goods they have. and essentially, what we just heard from merrick garland this afternoon was, all right, we're ready to do that. now, they've got until 3:00 tomorrow, trump's team. i've reached out. we've also reached out to his counsel. we have not heard back from them at this time. i think it's important to note that donald trump himself on his truth social media account issued a statement just a few minutes after merrick garland's press conference wrapped up, and he didn't address whether he was going to fight to stop this -- the unsealing of these two records here. instead, i'll just read for it part of you. "my attorneys and representatives were cooperating fully and very good

relationships had been established." now, why is he saying this? we also learned this afternoon that trump team did not reveal to us until this afternoon that they had received a subpoena from the department of justice way back this spring, and that led to a june 3rd meal right here at mar-a-lago between trump, trump's counsel, and the doj. at that time, donald trump, they turned over documents and material, boxes worth of material at the request and based off the subpoena that the department of justice gave them. clearly, in the two-plus months since, the department of justice determined what they received was not sufficient, and it was not what they were looking for, which led to today. we have no word on whether they fight this, and i think it takes us back here over the last 72 hours that you and i have lived through here, john, and it was the number of republicans that were putting the onus on the department of justice, calling on them to be transparent. just one of them. ted cruz, from texas, i just want to read the tweet that he sent two days ago. "to the a.g. and fbi director, release the warrant now.

the american people deserve to see it. now." now, the ball is in donald trump's court. >> vaughn, i got a real quick question for you. when the president's -- former president's team says, we've been fully transparent, and now you say to them -- and cooperative -- sorry, they've been fully cooperative. if you say to them, yeah, except you guys defied a subpoena. how does that constitute fully cooperative? what's the answer you get? >> reporter: there's not much of an answer to be had here. donald trump is essentially running his operation here now. this operation around him is different than the one that he left the white house with in january of 2021. and i think it's important when you look at the context, frankly, i don't think it's clear that the folks around him, presently, have a -- have an understanding, even, of what documents lie here within the basement here of mar-a-lago. i've been told that they, you know, at the request of the doj, they let them come and see that room where the materials were, but i frankly -- they don't have

much of an answer to offer back. >> right. it's never been the board of directors of mensa down there in trumpworld, but it seems to be even a worse place than it was before in terms of basic grasp of facts and english. vaughn hillyard, peter strzok, tali weinstein and pete wehner, thank you. liz cheney expected to lose her primary. what's she setting her sights on next? maybe a 2024 run for the white house? john harris thinks so. stay with us. house? john harris thinks so. stay with us

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america cannot remain free if we abandon the truth. the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. this is donald trump's legacy, but it cannot be the future of our nation. history has shown us over and over again how these types of poisonous lies destroy free nations. no matter how long we must fight, this is a battle we will win. millions of americans across our nation, republicans, democrats, independents, stand united in the cause of freedom. >> and that's liz cheney with her final ad in the race to hold on to her house seat in wyoming. and the importance of continuing the fight against trumplism. cheney is projected to lose that but the congresswoman appears to

be eyeing her next act in american politics, which some, maybe more than some, have speculated would be a run for the republican nomination for president as soon as 2024. my friend john harris right here has a new piece in politico writing about the task that she faces immediately after this primary, assuming she loses. quote, liz cheney is facing an awkward challenge, accept defeat while sounding like a winner. more significantly a signal that her loss in the primary is in no way an end to her career. we're back with john. that's a tough task because for many people this is the signal race of like how much has the republican party changed? the republican party under donald trump has changed so much that a woman named liz cheney, whose father is dick cheney is now a rino. if that doesn't tell you that there's no future for you in the republican party, what hope is

there for anyone that's a standard republican conservative. >> what she has said is this is not the signal moment, this is just one moment in a contest. a contest about what it means to be a conservative, about what the future of the republican party is, but much more profoundly, what it says about our political system as a whole. do we believe in the rule of law, are we prepared to defend democracy and defend constitutional values? and she says, look, she made it clear she hasn't said that she plans to lose it, but she's talked in lots of ways that make clear that she has a future beyond whatever happens on tuesday. >> as in the ad -- >> and it's a long-term battle. >> her dad, the big fight is defeating trumpism. there's a longer term thing. any chance you think she wins this primary, that it's just unpredictable out there and in the end the chips fall a different way than everyone expects? >> the only way that would be the case, we get surprised all the time in politics. >> that's what i'm saying.

>> asteroids hit. sure. i'm always open to being surprised. >> i keep saying not very many people voting, you never know what's happening and the polling terrible. here's the thing, right? it's a long-term bet. she's politically ambitious. she doesn't want to be a martyr to this cause, she's fighting trumpism because she believes in it and she thinks there's a future where a reformed republican party -- this could be the great calling card. if she could reform the party, it would work out fine for her and that's the challenge, defeat trumpism and try to reclaim in her minding the old virtues of the republican party pre-trump. >> well, she was on the record on this in that piece by jonathan martin the other day. she was asked and she said she honestly doesn't know the answer. can the republican party be saved? i think the implication was, look, i'm open to the possibility that at least in the near and medium term it can't be and so i would be open to the

possibility of a third party movement, an independent candidacy. >> you have no doubt that she's at least going to be an aspiring player aggressively trying to carve out a place for us in our national life despite what happened on tuesday? >> that's not speculative on my part, the plain meaning of her words makes it clear. i don't think she's decided what to do in 2024 in her own mind yet but her interest is unmistakable. >> and you don't think her losing this primary means she's dead? >> no. i think she's trying to frame a defeat as one chapter in a much longer book. ronald reagan -- >> i was going to ask you if you're a believer or not. john harris, thank you for writing the piece and being here this hour. a quick break for us and we'll be right back. a quick break for us and we'll be right back. “shoot it?” suggests the scientists. 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.

thank you for being with us on this eventful thursday. "the beat with ari melber" starts right now. hi, ari. i've got to know. what do you think the trump people are going to do tomorrow before 3:00? >> that is a big question we're about to get into, john. i think they have a hard choice to make that merrick garland is forcing them to make that otherwise they didn't know they were going to make so i don't know if they even know. good to see you, sir. i want to welcome everyone into "the beat." you know what we're doing here, we're beginning with breaking news. the u.s. government searched the home of its former leader for criminal evidence this week. now today for the first time, the chief law enforcement officer of the united states, attorney general merrick garland, spoke out about that unprecedented legal action and he