>> on monday, the fbi searched mar-a-lago and seized documents, something that trump reacted to with characteristic restraint. mr. trump said, mar-a-lago was under siege, raided and occuied by a large group of fbi agents. adding, they even broke into my safe. no, not your safe! yeah, amazingly, it turns out the fbi even checks your locked saves when they go through your home with a search warrant. the only way around that is if your safe says, "no fbi allowed" on it,legally, they can't look in there. >> and we're learning more about the justice department's reasoning for searching donald trump's home. the potential laws that might have been broken, and why his new excuse for mishandling classified documents isn't exactly adding up. plus, the republican party splits on how to respond to the fbi search. some lawmakers refuse to tone

down the rhetoric, despite a wave of violent threats against law enforcement. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, august 15th. a lot has happened since we got off the air friday, so since we finished coverage friday, we learned the search warrant for mar-a-lago revealed former president trump is being investigated for possible violations of the espionage act, tied to the mishandling of national defense information or classified material. now, according to the fbi, 11 sets of classified records were seized from trump's home, including some marked as top secret, meant only to be available in special government facilities. two other laws were also cited as a basis for the warrant pertaining to removing, destroying, or concealing records and obstruction of justice. according to the search warrant

for mar-a-lago, agents were allowed to search trump's office, all storage rooms, and all other rooms available to trump, his staff, or anywhere documents could be stored. meanwhile, former president trump is offering a new line of defense for taking top secret government documents to his mar-a-lago home in florida, a club. >> by the way, it's about his 12th excuse. >> there have been a -- >> i mean, he's coming up with excuses. somebody put it succinctly. i didn't take the documents. but if i did take the documents, they weren't classified. and if they were classified, then they were planted. and if they weren't, i declassified them. and if i didn't, then it's a hoax. if it is not a hoax, obama did it. he keeps changing. he keeps going through the lies.

you know, first, he said he was working and cooperating with government agents. then, when we found out the truth about that, he said the agents planted it. finally, he started lying -- and you're going to talk about this in a second -- saying he declassified them. then on sunday, on the sunday shows, after all of these different stories didn't line up, after all of the lies that he had thrown out there and all of the you know what thrown against the wall didn't line up, then he had former aides go on tv and start a new round of lies. one saying, well, he was in a rush. he was packing. he didn't know whether he was going to leave or not. then when he found out he was going to leave the white house -- i'm not sure why he didn't know that he was leaving the white house. he lost by millions and millions of votes.

lost by what he called his own victory, lost by the same number, which he said was one of the greatest landslides in american history, the electoral college count. if you take him at his own words. but he was in such a rush, that he just accidentally took some of the boxes. then another former trumper, well, still a trumper but former adviser, said it was the gsa's fault. gsa said, no, actually, the responsibility for making decisions about what materials are removed rests entirely with the outgoing president and their supporting staff. any questions about the contents of any items that were delivered, eg, documents, are the responsibility of the former president and his supporting staff, and should be directed to their office. as john bolton said -- and we're going to be playing this clip later, too, mika -- john billion bolton, national security adviser, said, "i didn't know

anything about this." he's just making sh -- stuff up. he said when people begin concocting lies like this, it shows a real level of desperation. >> we'll see. >> we all know he is lying. there has been, i guess if you count it, seven, eight, nine, ten different lies. again, we know he is lying. the disturbing thing is, his supporters know he is lying, and they're still his supporters. >> well, i think a lot of people who support donald trump, if they heard that, would say, oh, but you're saying he is lying. this is more of, you know, the way people respond to our guy. the thing is, his explanations defy the way things are done when you're dealing with classified documents. therefore, you can deduce that they are a lie. there are no such things as standings orders you make up out of thin air. >> also, if he says, "i didn't take documents," you find the documents. write that down as a lie. if you say you're cooperating

with the fbi and you lie to the fbi and the justice department by saying you've returned all the classified documents, you can mark that down as a lie. because they didn't return all the classified documents. >> he said he did. >> if you say you were, quote, raided, then we find out that not only was this not a raid and not a shock, but it actually wasn't a raid, no doors were knocked down. donald trump and his wife were watching on cameras, i guess the reporting shows. >> yup. >> by the way, all of this is on cameras, including what they've done with the documents over the past several months. so whoever did anything legally or possibly illegally with those documents, it's all on camera. we'll see if they burn the tapes. >> yeah, it'll be interesting. >> or throw out the dvr. you can say that's a lie. and if you say they were planted, we can go, check, that's a lie.

like, his own supporters can just see what's happened over the past week, to see that all of these things were a lie. then we go to the declassification and the hoax. it was, agai -- he keeps lying. the first thing he says is always a lie. the second, third, fourth, always a lie, as well, until he is finally cornered. again, first he said he was working and cooperating with government agents. he wasn't. he lied to them. now, mika, we come back to that there is a standing order here. i mean, it's just -- again, this is not a matter of opinion, mika, on whether he is lying or not. >> no, i know. >> you're trying to be understanding of those who would still want so desperately to believe all of these lies. but they're lies. >> a statement released by trump's office friday night contends everyone takes work

home sometimes. >> no. no, they actually don't in this field. >> i'm trying not to laugh at that. some might argue, there was not a lot of work being done in the white house. a lot of executive times, not sure why he'd bring stuff to his golf course. the statement reads, in part, quote, president trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents, including classified documents, from the oval office to the residence. >> wait, i don't understand. if you're not working during the day, why would you work at night? you're watching cable news all day. why would you -- like, nobody believes that either. >> this statement goes on to say that he had a standing order that documents removed from the oval office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them. >> that's a lie, too. >> trump's former national security adviser, john bolton, as you said, joe, said he never heard of such an order. during an interview with nbc

news over the weekend, bolton offered this challenge to the latest line from the former president's office. >> when i became national security adviser, nobody briefed me or informed me that this policy or order was in effect. i was never aware of anything even remotely approximaing that policy. i haven't heard anything of it since i left. if he, in fact, said something like that, when was it memorial memorialized? when did the white house counsel write it down? to whom was it distributed? if he took materials out of the safe space to the residence, it'd have to be documented, what they were, each document, so that people would know what had been declassified. i know of no logistical train, no paper train at all that says what's declassified and what is not. when a document is declassified, it's not just declassified as to donald trump. it is declassified for the whole

world. in theory, if that order existed, which i don't think it did, the news media could, today, file a freedom of information act request for every document he declassified, which, over a four-year period, could be a high stake. i think this is made up. i think a key point here is when somebody is making up stories like that, i think it indicates a level of desperation. >> mika, he's never heard of any order, if there were a standing order. it'd change how the documents were held. anything he declassified, reporters could get. >> yeah. >> because it's been declassified. and the person, for those who don't follow the news closely, the person was not the head of parks and recreation for donald trump. he was the national security adviser. if anything like this had existed, he would have known about it. he would have been working with other people to take classified documents and declassify them.

>> as joe said, it is also being reported that at least one lawyer for the former president signed a written statement back in june that said, all of the material marked classified and held in boxes in a storage area at mar-a-lago had been returned to the government. >> that lawyer signed that document for -- >> donald trump. >> -- donald trump. >> we know the fbi agents seized 11 sets of documents with some type of confidential or secret marking on them during the search on monday. while the former president said on friday he had already declassified the material found in his possession, there is no documentation of that. further reporting by "the new york times" goes on to say, quote, the justice department also subpoenaed surveillance footage from mar-a-lago. >> whoops. >> recorded over a 60-day period. including views from outside the storage room. according to a person briefed on

the matter, the footage showed that after one instance in which the justice department officials were in contact with mr. trump's team -- >> whoops. >> -- boxes were moved in and out of the room. >> you see, that's the thing about the justice department. and the fbi, if they're coming to search for things at your house -- >> they're going to keep coming. >> -- they actually already know they're there. >> they're going to keep asking. they're going to watch you, see what you're doing. >> by the way, if they ask you for your security footage, and there is a strong likelihood that there is somebody on the inside working with the fbi, they already know there is security footage of people moving classified documents out of safe areas inside of mar-a-lago, safe for donald trump to hide them from everybody else, after the doj reaches out and asks for classified documentation.

it's like a perry mason thing, isn't it, mika? >> yeah. >> if they ask the question, they already know the answer. >> that's important for one special viewer of "morning joe" to perhaps think about. let's bring in the host of "way too early" -- >> it is also important for others to know. hi, everybody, you know what i am about to say here. i think there's a lot of people with ptsd, whether they're democrats, independents, or republicans, who have seen in the past that it seems donald trump is above the law. it's just important to remember that what we have been looking at in the past, donald trump in political settings. even the mueller investigation was an investigation that, for the most part, was in a political setting. he'd said he wasn't going to bring charges against the president. this is not in a political setting. i will say, when i first ran for office, my first couple months on the campaign trail, i was a bit surprised that people could

just say anything and get away with it. because my mind had been shaped in the law, and there were rules of evidence in the law. there were rules of civil procedure. there were rules you had to go by, or else the judge, you know, would become quite unhappy with you. everybody would go by the rules or pay the consequences. we're now in a legal environment. the ring we're in now is not the political ring where anything goes, any lie stands. all you have to do is convince the dumbest people watching you that you were cooperating with the fbi or that this was a hoax, right, or the election was stolen. this is in court. because it is in court, it's the same reason rudy giuliani could lie at press conferences outside of courts, but then go inside courts and go, "oh, no, your

honor, we're not alleging widespread voter fraud here." there are rules inside the courtroom. this is donald trump's problem. for people thinking this is going to be just like everything else, it's not. we're going to find out, either donald trump is going to be charged with a crime, or he is not going to be charged with a crime. we will know that there will be a thorough investigation, and it will be based on the law. that is something that i think people who are worried that trump is going to get away with something, get caught, i think they can rest assured that merrick garland, department of justice, they're going to follow the law. i know people are complaining, oh, this is helping donald trump. i think bill maher said something about, oh, this is reviving donald trump. so? if it revives his political career, it revives his political career. you follow the law where it leads you.

you administer justice to all, regardless of the outcome. regardless of their standing. >> yeah. >> that's where we are right now. >> i don't think you can call the attorney general and try to turn the heat down. i think when the justice department, the fbi are working on something, they're not looking at anything else. they're not listening to anybody in terms of their advice, as to how to handle. like i said -- >> also turning the heat down, then release the names of the agents. >> oh, my gosh. >> who are facing unprecedented levels of death threats. >> yeah. >> you release a document so you can get the names of the fbi agents out there, that's where we are right now. >> and the danger, there's a lot of different areas that we need to cover here about the dangerous rhetoric online and finding its way out into the country. the host of "way too early" and white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire joins us.

investigations reporter for "the washington post," jackie alemany is here. she's an msnbc contributor. nbc news senior national political reporter marc caputo joins us this morning. jackie, in a new piece entitled "trump's secrets: how a records dispute led the fbi to search mar-a-lago," you and your colleagues write, in part, quote, a trump adviser said the former president's reluctance to relinquish the records stems from his belief that many items created during his term, photos, notes, even a model of air force one built to show off a new paint job that he had commissioned, are now his personal property. despite a law dating to 1970s that decreed otherwise. he gave them what he believed was theirs, the adviser said. he gets his back up every time they asked him for something, said another trump adviser. he didn't give the documents because he didn't want to. he doesn't like those people. he doesn't trust those people.

but this goes back all the way to the beginning of the trump administration, joe. >> but, mika -- or we'll go to you, jackie. model airplanes are one thing. top secret, compartmentalized information, quite another. there is a range of documents and items the fbi got out of mar-a-lago, isn't there? >> yeah. i mean, this is a president who completely issued an incompliance to the law. it's continued two years after joe biden replaced him in the white house and the national archives started this endeavor of trying to get back documents that belong to the american public and don't belong to the former president, contrary to his claims to friends that we spoke with this past week, who were in touch with trump throughout the week, who said

that trump was complaining that these were his belongings. he was entitled to them. but, obviously, you know, we've said time and time again that that is not the case here. he did not adhere to any of the processes that should have been in place in a normal white house. it's unclear, though, where the procedural breakdown occurred. there was a scramble, as we've reported, for the former president to move to mar-a-lago at the time. but, again, there are regulations in place, not only to store those documents but also the declassification process in general, again, contrary to what trump has been claiming that he was able to declassify everything. and i think the greatest irony of all of this is that trump signed a bill into law in 2018 that could be used to punish a

former president if he is found to mishandle classified information after leaving office. this is something that he signed into law in 2018. it upgraded the seriousness of wrongdoing in terms of moving classified information from a misdemeanor into a felony. increasing the maximum sentence to five years. >> that could be a problem. marc, in the piece you co-authored for nbc news, you write that trump's style of handling white house documents has been described by people who worked for him as slap dash and ad hoc. you and your colleagues write, quote, when john kelly became white house chief of staff in the summer of 2017, he said he would remind trump about the importance of abiding by the presidential records act. a newcomer to public office who is accustomed to running his business his own way, trump chafed under the regimen. kelly said, when i got there, a retired four-star marine

general, the staff secretary wasn't taking stuff out of the trash cans and taping it back together. >> he was. >> he was. that continued while i was there. my god. a former senior white house aide who was there at the time told nbc news that internal procedures tightened for a bit, but there was invariably slippage. we had something approximaing a process, this person said, speaking in the position of anonymity because of the investigation. he is a total pack rat, keeps all sorts of stuff. trump could be cavalier about material, crumbling up his papers or tearing them into pieces and leaving them on the floor, the former aide said. >> so, marc caputo, obviously, this recklessness, not just with documents but also with classified information, was known by most of us from the beginning of his term. of course, most famously or

infamously going into the oval office with sergey lavrov and also the russian ambassador to the united states without any u.s. reporters in there, and revealing classified information that could have put lives or, of course, an ally's means of collecting intel at great risk. that was from the start. >> that was 2017. here we are in, what, 2022. i guess when you look at the broader arc of donald trump's political career, history in the white house, maybe this shouldn't come as shock, the reality is, is we really don't know how these various documents got into these boxes over time. in some cases, it looks as if he'd gone through some sort of process. in other case, he just put things in boxes over time. there's also the possibility that at the last minute of moving out of the white house, he was grabbing things. john bolton told us he was grabbing papers all the time,

and god knows what he did with it. it is difficult to piece together the exact narrative and the story and the history of how these documents wound up here. that's part of what the fbi is doing. not sure when the investigation is going to end. they hauled away a whole bunch of material on monday, and there, obviously, an ongoing criminal investigation. i guess the overarching question is this, what were in the records? some are surprising. they mentioned the commutation of roger stone was there. why was that there? even roger stone says he doesn't know. if roger stone doesn't know why donald trump has his form, it raises the question, what was he doing in that period of time? how was he doing it, and why was he doing it? it is a bigbig mystery. >> jonathan lemire, this recklessness with classified information followed donald trump from the start.

and i'm curious what you're hearing from the administration, what you're also hearing from your trump contacts about where they think this investigation is going. because i know there's a lot of screeching and howling, but the facts are the facts. the evidence is the evidence. chances are good doj has it. reports are they already have the video footage or knowledge of the video footage of reaching out to trump and then him having his people move classified documents out of a storage room at his country club. what's the feeling in there on the ground from trump people? are they -- do they have the attitude of, say, right now, spirits of yankees fans or mets fans? >> well, as someone put it to me recently, there are few things

the government doesn't have a sense of humor about. national security, classified documents one of them. this is something that is, indeed, going to be followed through the very end by the department of justice, with a charging decision over the horizon at some point. first part of the question, biden administration is keeping their distance. they want to act independently. we have no influence. they're not talking about it. president biden on a well-timed vacation to avoid reporters' questions on the matter. in trump world, there is growing concern. some people i've talked to over the last week who sort of play this down. look, donald trump got in trouble before. he always seems to get out of it. this will be -- people are talking about him again. look, we're raising all this money. this could be good for republicans, we have something to rally around, as the political momentum turned against them. you're hearing some of that. to those close to the former president, some worry this is different. this is not a political scandal he can try to shake off. this is a different matter, one

with real serious consequences. we have seen from republicans in the first two days after the search, incredible, incendiary rhetoric against the fbi, against the federal government, condemning what happened. there has been word from those close to trump saying, hey, this one might be serious. let's not totally go on the offensive yet. let's let this play out a little while longer. this is -- so there is registering some concern in trump world, that this one is different and deeply serious. >> you know, marc, when i hear people whining, this is a great quote i saw. ben collins tweeted, and we'll have ben on in a minute, but ben tweeted something like -- i can't find it -- but -- oh, here we go. we're at, everybody steals nuclear documents, much faster than i expected. when people are making excuses for donald trump, i just think

back to being in congress, think back to being on the armed services committee, thinking back at the extraordinary care the intelligence community had when they were going to give me a briefing. and the procedures that you went through. i mean, i was, you know, sufficiently intimidated by the process and understood that what i learned in those briefings, i kept to myself. i have even 20 years later. so i just think about these double standards. for instance, his $150,000 payoff, i think it was, to stormy daniels a week or two before the election. had a member of congress does that, not reported it for election prospects, they'd go to jail. if a member of congress had taken two or three of these

documents, chances are good they would go to jail. we saw what happened to two former cia directors. we saw what happened to a national security adviser when they did far, far less than this. i guess what surprises me is just the raging double standard by republicans, who understand if they did this themselves, they would already either have pled a deal with the fbi or they'd be in jail right now. >> it is a different republican party now, and there is a huge political cult of personality now in the gop. that personality is donald trump. and his defense -- and i hesitate to say this because so many people get angry merely for us raising it. while it is widely disputed, including by john bolton, the defense of donald trump is essentially one of the unitary sort of imperial executive.

he is in charge, solely in charge of the executive, and anything he says goes within the executive branch. therefore, he is vested with these supreme powers to automatically declassify things in his head, and he needs to leave no paper trail. most experts we've spoken to have disagreed with that, including john bolton. now, there are people in trump's orbit who say, yeah, that's true. that includes his former director of national intelligence. >> of course it does. >> that is what you're going to be hearing over time. if there is a defense -- >> he doesn't really count. >> i understand. >> grenell doesn't really count. >> yeah. >> we don't get our intel evidence from clowns. go ahead, i'm sorry. >> that's okay. i think one of the reasons you're hearing this argument is they're preparing for the inevitability or the possibility this could end up in court. the former president could get charged and, ultimately, this case would be, therefore, decided by a jury. that is a sneak peek, a preview

of what his defense is going to be. >> there you go. jackie, there are three buckets of legal woes for donald trump. there's the new york state situation. there is the january 6th committee. now, there's the fbi search of documents that were found inside mar-a-lago, president trump's florida club. where the public often goes. how much of this that has been revealed in the past week dovetails or could be, might be, of interest to the january 6th committee? >> that's a really good question, mika. it is something we have been asking our sources. because it is unclear so far what is included in those documents, we haven't been able to quite figure that out. i do think it is worth noting that all of this does emanate from the january 6th committee's work. when they first made those requests months ago, we reported that the committee found that a lot of the documents that were turned over from the national

archives, these documents related to january 6th and were from not just federal agencies but from the trump white house, were destroyed. they were shredded and had looked like they had been taped back together. from there, we were then able to piece together that the national archives was missing documents and they were trying to go after them to bring them back. not for the january 6th committee but just for the purposes of the presidential records act and historic preservation, creating the most comprehensive account of the trump presidency. that being said, there's a myriad of rumors going around about what these documents are related to exactly, other than what we have been previously reported, is they were related to the -- the feds were looking for documents related potentially to a nuclear program. i do think it is worth repeating

that, according to the search warrant, agents at mar-a-lago were seeking evidence of three potential violations of federal statutes, including a section of the espionage act, which makes it a crime to possess or share national defense secrets without authorization. these documents, as we've been told, the former president was not authorized to disclose them. or have them. >> "the washington post" jackie alemany and marc caputo, thank you both for your reporting this morning. we shall see where this leads up. we'll have much more on the growing wave of violent threats online coming from trump supporters. >> well, they're coming from trump supporters, and they're inspired, just like january 6th was inspired by donald trump -- >> yeah. >> he revved these people up to commit acts of violence. he is doing the same thing now. people close to him are saying, they're coming after you. they're coming after you.

making his alleged crimes part of their problem. and so, you know, the lies about they planted evidence or it was a raid, he's purposefully doing it. he is releasing the names of the fbi agents. so it is really important, when we talk about this rising violence that's occurring, it's important everybody understands and the media reports it, this is happening because of one person, donald trump. he is fanning the flames. >> nbc's ben collins will join us with his latest reporting. also, we'll look at new polls since the fbi searched mar-a-lago. how the former president is doing compared to the man many see as his strongest gop challenger in 2024. plus, two solidly red states hold primaries tomorrow with voters deciding between prominent republicans versus trump-backed challengers. and it's been a year since the taliban took over

afghanistan. we'll be joined by two reporters who have covered all of the changes inside the country. we'll be right back.

lily! welcome to our third bark-ery. oh, i can tell business is going through the “woof”. but seriously we need a reliable way to help keep everyone connected from wherever we go. well at at&t we'll help you find the right wireless plan for you. so, you can stay connected to all your drivers and stores on america's most reliable 5g network. that sounds just paw-fect. terrier-iffic i labra-dore you round of a-paws at&t 5g is fast, reliable and secure for your business. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ "shake your thang" by salt n pepa vo: as families struggle with inflation-

congress and president biden are doing something about it. congress just passed the inflation reduction act, reducing costs for millions of families. it lowers the cost of drugs and ramps up production of american-made clean energy. that means lower energy bills for families jobs for our communities and the boldest plan to take on climate change we've ever seen. the inflation reduction act will “bring relief to millions of people” congress just got it done. the unknown is not empty. it's a storm that crashes, and consumes, replacing thought with worry. but one thing can calm uncertainty. an answer. uncovered through exploration, teamwork, and innovation. an answer that leads to even more answers. mayo clinic. you know where to go. age is just a number. and mine's unlisted.

try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. i got tai last december. i've spent almost every minute with her since. when i first brought her home, she was eating little brown pieces in a bag and it was just what kind of came recommended. i just always thought, “dog food is dog food” i didn't really piece together that dogs eat food. as soon as we brought the farmer's dog in, her skin was better, she was more active, high-quality poops. if i can invest in her health and be proactive, i think it's worth it. see the benefits of fresh food at betterforthem.com it's time for the biggest sale of the year, on the sleep number 360 smart bed. it's temperature balancing, so you both say cool. our smart sleepers get 28 minutes more i think it's worth it. restful sleep per night. all smart beds are on sale. save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. ends monday

first pitch to him. albert in deep left center. oh, my goodness! way out of here. three-run bomb, his second of the day. >> that's albert pujols with the first place st. louis cardinals. hit two home runs in the national league, and that's career home run 689 right there, coming up, unbelievably, on 700 home runs. it is great to see him doing that in a cardinals uniform, where he belongs. jonathan lemire, the american

league, the red sox, last place red sox, took two out of three from the first place yankees. must say, walker looked like a cy young winner last night. the story here, as much as we'd like to make it about the boston red sox, is about the new york yankees. the wheels have just fallen off. i think alex told me, one of the worst records in baseball since the all-star break. we take absolutely no pleasure in saying any of this. we're just baseball reporters. that's what we are. so what in the world has happened to the yankees since the all-star break, where they now -- i mean, they were chasing history. they now have the -- only the fourth best record in all of baseball. again, not bad, but you do not want to be skidding off the side of the road like this going into late august. what's up with it?

>> joe, we deal just in the facts here, as you say, and here are some of those facts. yankees lost 9 of 11. they have had one of the worst records in baseball since the all-star break. they are under .500 in their last -- over their last 50 games. that's a significant sample size in 162-game season. >> yeah. >> it is a few things. first of all, they were one of the most healthy teams in the league in the first half, and injuries have caught up to them. stanton is hurt. matt carpenter who suddenly was babe ruth when he put on the pinstripes, he's hurt. severino is hurt. pitchers cooled off. they've lost arms in the bullpen. they're nearly 30 game over .500. they'll be one of the top two seeds in the playoffs, getting them home field advantage, but yankee fans getting nervous. it is a team who didn't do perhaps enough at the deadline, some feel, and they're vulnerable. right now, you'd have to say they're looking up at the houston astros, not just in the standings in the american league, but as potentially the a.l. favorite to go to the world

series. they're being upstaged by they cross-town rivals, the new york mets, who have gotten jacob degrom back, who hasn't missed a beat. >> amazing. >> they're amazing. right now, the talk of the town. >> i was going to say, the new york yankees go from being a team that was chasing history, one of the best teams we've seen in a very long time, to now being in second place in their own hometown. the new york mets, it's just unbelievable. they've been battered with injuries all year. i mean, it's like they had a roster of chris sales. looking at an oven and, like, burning a hand or falling or standing on the street and, like, just falling over and breaking something. whatever could go wrong with the mets this year has gone wrong. yet, they're tearing it up. 75-40. the sox, any hope for the sox to get out of last place, jonathan? you see anything good going on

there? >> out of last place, sure. it'd be hard to make the playoffs though. they're not just 4.5 games out in the wild card, but they're seventh on the list. only the top three make the playoffs. look, they had a good week. they finally won a series against the american league east opponent, the first time all year with that 2 out of 3 against the yankees. they won thursday night against the orioles. won three out of four. they have a little bit of a soft spot in the schedule coming up, which perhaps could help. trevor story should be back in a week or so. they won't be getting chris sale back because he keeps standing under anvils, apparently. but they'll need to win 8 out of 10, 10 out of 12 to get back in the race, and i'm not sure they have the pitching to do it, despite the pitching last night. >> most games last about 12 hours if it is the yankees and

red sox. yeah, so we'll see what happens. let's just say it straight up, they need to sweep the pirates and orioles over the next six games, and we'll see what happens then. alex told me, mika, that -- he said, good luck with the transition. >> i got it. >> the only thing uglier than the new york yankees bullpen are the threats that are being leveled against americans. >> that's actually true. one week after the fbi -- >> a lot of things, not many uglier than that. the only transition i had. >> descended on the home of former president trump in a planned search, where the secret service was given a heads-up. donald trump and his wife were on video watching it as it happened. it was peaceful. threats against federal law enforcement officials remain high. three senior officials tell nbc news the fbi and homeland of national security issued a warning about the violence with

rhetoric. officials are to remain cautious and vigilant in the face of threats largely being made on the internet. a trump supporters was killed in a confrontation with police after firing a nail gun into the fbi's field office in cincinnati. he was reportedly armed with an assault rifle. saturday, armed supporters of the former president gathered near the fbi's office in phoenix, arizona, to protest the search of trump's home. meanwhile, a far-right media outlet is facing criticism after publishing the names of the fbi agents who searched donald trump's mar-a-lago estate. the website "breitbart" published a leaked version of the search warrant, including the names of the special agent and supervisor who participated in it hours before. >> let me say, they knew, mika, exactly what they were doing. there was so much online chatter. we'll hear from ben collins.

people were desperate to get the names of these agents so they could kill them. threats all over the internet, saying they were desperately searching for the agents' names that had been redacted because they wanted to find them so they could hunt them down and kill them. >> the justice department -- >> under that environment, "breitbart" decided to go ahead and let those people see their names. >> the justice department had released, as you said, joe, a redacted version. the move is now prompting criticism that "breitbart" essentially put a target on the agents' backs. >> yeah, they did. but they did it on purpose. >> hmm hmm. they're not the only ones. trump or someone on his team is believed to have leaked the unredacted version. the former president was the only one in possession of the documents ahead of the official doj release. his truth social platform sent out acluded a link to the

"breitbart" article. >> jonathan lemire, not only did the president release the names, they send a notification out on his social media platform for everybody to look at it. everybody had already known what was contained in it, other than the fbi agents' names who were receiving death threats. i mean, you look at this. look at the recklessness of this. look at the recklessness of media outlets regarding the florida federal judge. already receiving death threats. they're superimposing jeffrey epstein's face -- or his face on jeffrey epstein's body. it is, again -- there are a lot of people out there who want to see this federal judge killed. there are a lot of people out there that want to see these fbi agents killed. at least it certainly looks that way. >> yeah. a huge rise of threats against law enforcement, fbi in particular, in recent weeks. the incident in the office in

cincinnati a few days ago underscoring that danger. you're right, whether it was trump personally or someone close to him, they're the ones who had a copy of that document. they're the ones who put it out to a friendly right-wing media source and then promoted it on truth social. trump's fingerprints all over this. it does, it has put a target on the backs of two officers who were simply doing their jobs. again, for a party that has -- the republican party, who long tried to tout its support of law enforcement, boy, this is sure not doing that. let's remember, of course, this comes on a year-and-a-half after january 6th, where capitol police officers were attacked and badly beaten by trump supporters, who were there because donald trump himself called them to violence. now, we have threats being made against these agents because trump or someone very close to him put out their names. we have republican lawmakers calling for the fbi to be

de-funded, and that federal law enforcement should be disbanded. it is, yet again, more hypocrisy from a republican party that long strayed under the leadership of donald trump of being supportive of law enforcement, and two lives are in danger. >> yeah, lives are in danger. again, they hate law enforcement when law enforcement doesn't do their political bidding. they're fascists. these people who hate law enforcement when they actually try to do their jobs, they're fascists. they want to use political violence against them, against anybody that doesn't further their political agenda. look at january 6th. do they support law enforcement? no. they didn't support law enforcement because they wanted to overturn a peaceful democratic election. and so they beat the hell out of law enforcement officers with flags, bludgeoned their heads, jammed them in doors. officers died after january 6th. their families say because of

the january 6th rioters. now you look at this, mika. >> yeah. >> they hate the fbi again. republicans have hated the fbi. the premier law enforcement agency in america, they hated it from the start because they tried to blame all of donald trump's bizarre activities on the fbi. now, they hate them here. >> yeah. >> i mean, they're back to hating the fbi again because the fbi is trying to protect americans by keeping classified documents classified. keeping top secret documents where they're supposed to be, for the protection of america and their allies. but they're siding, again, they're siding with this guy who has been behaving like a fascist. >> yeah. >> they're against law enforcement officers. so they don't support cops. >> not just far-right websites, it is fox news.

i watched a good amount on friday and saw a lot of people twisting themselves into pretzels to try and figure out some way that this possibly was some sort of attack and assault by the fbi and justice department on donald trump. there were really uncomfortable moments where people were screaming and calling merrick garland a loser and screaming at each other, screaming at the situation. it upsets people. it gins them up. i was listening for the logic, and there was none. there was no journalistic integrity, and there was no logic to it. i don't understand how this could be allowed in light of everything that is facing the network overall, in terms of the credibility here. i say that very carefully. nobody is perfect. you know, all the cable networks have gone through a lot of changes in the past decade, and everyone is trying to do better. i'm not seeing it on the part of

fox. i'm not. not even in light of this. let's bring in nbc news reporter ben collins. >> you certainly expect much, much more, mika, after january 6th. >> you would think. >> you would not expect the same mistakes to be repeated, the ginning up of trump's most rabid followers leading into jump. >> that's -- >> then hosts being stocked, stunned, and deeply saddened when the riots took place and police were getting hell beaten out of them with american flags. suddenly they're texting and calling desperately," please stop. "the next day, pretending nothing happened. now it is happening again. it is happening again. how many times does -- so how many police officers have to be killed? >> yeah. >> before people wake up on the far right? how many fbi agents have to be shot? >> come on. >> before they wake up, how many fbi offices need to be attacked before they stop this?

we don't know how this is going to turn out. maybe trump walks again. i'm thinking he probably does. but we don't know. so why the hatred? why the deliberate targeting of law enforcement officers? whipping people into a frenzy when they all know these law enforcement officers are only doing their jobs? >> yeah. ben collins is with us. he has been monitoring the rhetoric, among other things. ben, what do you make of the conversation we're having right now? we're trying to have it carefully. at the same time, we're seeing sort of an incitement and even an attempt to get viewers to look away from what is happening. of course, you're monitoring the violent rhetoric you see online.

>> it is one, big strategy. joe is right, donald trump in these spaces cannot fail. he can only be failed, basically. that's the larger part of this strategy here. give people a litany of excuses. steve bannon said -- he didn't say stuff, something else, but he said, throw spaghetti at the wall, find something on the floor that best suits your narrative. with that, because everybody has a different excuse for why he didn't do the thing that he clearly did, you have to intimidate the people on the other side. then it turns the conversation from, did he do this thing, was it right, to who exactly is doing this? that is exactly what is part of this whole thing. "the new york times" reported, trump sent to note to merrick garland saying, what can i do to reduce the heat? the country is on fire. he knows.

don't release the names of fbi agents on, you know, in that search warrant. that's an easy thing to do. he cannot have an ex-aide, for example, zeigler, release the social media profiles of the family members of those fbi agents, which is what he did on truth social and telegram. you know, there are a lot of ways surrogates for donald trump can reduce the heat. they can, you know, make it so these fbi agents aren't specifically targeted. the new thing, by the way, in these spaces is to ask for the affidavit. the affidavit will say who signed off on all this, you know? not just the fbi agents that they can target, but the higher level figures they can target. they can add them to their cinematic universe of villains. at the end of the day, the goal is to intimidate those people into hiding. >> ben, you said that not only did trump's former aide on

trump's platform target the fbi agents, but also targeted the fbi agents' family? >> yeah, that's correct. this is about intimidation into stopping the investigation. that's all this is. when you're out of excuses or you have so many excuses that it's even impossible for your base to comprehend which one they're supposed to be parroting, the -- you know, the goal is to intimidate. it's not that hard now. these people -- you know, there's the phone numbers, all that stuff. once that's not enough, they start going down the list of facebook profiles and other people who they think could hypothetically be associated. by the way, it is not clear if these are actually family members. could be random civilians. their goal is to muddy the matters, is to instill a culture of fear. that's what happens when you're out of legal remedies, by the way. >> right. >> try to get people to stop the

investigation extra judiciously by punishing them. making them feel as if they'll feel a world of hate if they continue doing justice. >> ben is so right. jonathan lemire, it is always about intimidation. it's about disruption. it's about shocking your opponents. i mean, when you talk to democrats, and we've talked to democrats on both sides of pennsylvania avenue, whenever i have the past six months, they're so shocked and thrown off, the disruption, the fear, the intimidation, the lies. it all creates this environment that they don't know really how to operate in. the only reason i'm laughing here is because they're now doing it to the fbi. i would think -- i don't know, i guess i could probably list thousands and thousands of organizations, if you gave me a couple of weeks, that i would try this on before i tried it on the fbi.

all they're doing, all they're doing is making the fbi agents' work harder to protect their agents. working around the clock to track these people down who are making the threats. i mean, it's really -- it's just extraordinarily stupid, what they're doing. it's dangerous, yes, dangerous. but, again, these people aren't targeting, like, disneyland, right? they're targeting the federal bureau of investigations. they're targeting their families. they're talking about killing these people. all they're doing is getting the fbi to pay attention to them. doesn't seem to be a smart move. doesn't seem to be a smart move, not only for them, but for donald trump and all his people who are trying, if you look at

these -- if you look at what has been happening, trying to get their supporters to commit acts of violence against fbi agents, law enforcement officers, just like they did on january 6th. >> yeah, i'm not sure it is wise to poke the bear here, with the bear being fbi. certainly, to ben's point, we have seen this before from trump and his orbit. the idea of just throwing everything up against the wall, the smoke machine, as rudy giuliani once described it to me. we saw it in the mueller probe most vividly. any time trump has run into trouble since, he has tried to do this exact strategy. it's worked, quote, unquote, for him to get out of political trouble in the past. we'll see if it can now. there is a more serious undercurrent here of the threats. not just against these two specific fbi agents who were named, but agents across the country, with real rise in threats and violence online, man

manifesting itself. what we saw in cincinnati may not be the last time. >> ben collins, thank you for your great work. you do important work. a tweet of yours caught my attention. trump forums now, trying to id the specific fbi agents who were part of the raid so they can be, quote, helicopter passengers, a reference to the chili chiliian dictaor throwing opposers out of helicopters. what's next, mika? political implications on the justice department's investigation of donald trump. one of our next guests writes, it is time torre republicans to go nuclear and dump trump. the "daily beast's" matt lewis will explain. "morning joe" will be right back. >> ain't going to happen. >> ain't going to happen

i have flinn and a new puppy. as i was writing, i found that i just wasn't as sharp and i new i needed to do something so i started taking prevagen. i realized that i was much more clear and i was remembering the details that i was supposed to. prevagen keeps my brain working right. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis help make trading feel effortless and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market with powerful, easy-to-use tools power e*trade makes complex trading easier react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity

beautiful shot of washington on this monday morning, with pink skies off to the right. this morning, new reporting on what comes next in the justice department investigation of donald trump's handling of classified documents. we'll talk to andrew weisman, the lead prosecutor in the mueller investigation, and peter strzok, who led the fbi investigation into hillary clinton's emails and the trump russia probe. welcome back to "morning joe." it is monday, august 15th. the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico" and now best-selling author jonathan lemire still with us. the search warrant for mar-a-lago revealed former president donald trump is being investigated for possible violations of the espionage act, tied to the mishandling of national defense information or classified material. according to the fbi, 11 sets of

classified records were seized from trump's home, including some marked as top secret, meant only to be available in special government facilities. two other laws were also cited as a basis for the warrant pertaining to removing, destroying, or concealing records of obstruction -- and obstruction of justice. joining us now, aruna, she covers the justice department for the "wall street journal." aruna, give us a sense in terms of your reporting about the laws that the search warrant seems to point to. do we know at this point if the fbi was able to retrieve the evidence they were looking for? >> hi, yeah, so there are three laws cited in the search warrant, including, as i think you mentioned, the espionage act, then two others that deal with the handling of official records and the handling of records being in investigation.

at this point, i wouldn't read too much into the fact they used the espionage act. i mean, this investigation is still under way. we don't yet know if they're actually going to charge anybody. but it definitely speaks to the seriousness of this investigation and how concerned they were, that classified information was still sitting at mar-a-lago. it was really important to them to go in and get it back. they're using these serious statutes to convince a federal judge that they need to go in there and get these things out. >> do we know what it will take to make sure that what they retrieved is actually what they were looking for in its completion? >> that's an important question and one i think we're not going to get total clarity on in the near term. as you know, the investigations take a while to play out. they're clearly doing a thorough review of the documents they got. then we'll have to kind of see where they go from there. but considering they went in and did this full search, presumably

they got at least out of there what they wanted to get out of there. >> i want to ask you about that presumption right there. because the search warrant -- and it is worth repeating and trying to fully grasp -- having the warrant and actually going in there, you can presume that they knew what was in there and they were able to get what they were looking for. i mean, how much can you really presume at this point in terms of the contents of the documents? >> well, we know from our reporting they did have a source that was familiar with where some of the documents were continuing to be stored at mar-a-lago. that was informing their investigation before this search warrant was executed. so i think we have a sense that they sort of got what they wanted, but we don't know at this point what all is in there, except for these very high-level descriptions of sets of

classified documents. >> we'll be watching. aruna, viswanatha, thank you so much for coming on the show. at this point, we've heard a slew of excuses from donald trump and his team. "the new york times" points out, quote, first he said he was working and cooperating with government agents who he claimed had inappropriately entered his home. >> yeah, that ended up not being true. >> then when the government revealed that the fbi, during its search, had recovered nearly a dozen sets of documents that were marked classified, he suggested the agents had planted the evidence. >> yeah, that ended up not being true. in fact, they've got it all on mar-a-lago's, actually, taping system, that that's not true. >> finally, his aides claimed that he had -- this is interesting -- a standing order to declassify documents. >> yeah, that's not true either. we have john bolton just over

the weekend, national security adviser, saying, no, there's nothing like that. >> um, these documents, any of them that left the oval office for his residence, this standing order that the material was protected by attorney-client and executive privilege. >> nope. >> then there were reports that trump packed in a rush. >> it's not true. >> quote, when it finally dawned on donald trump in the twilight of his presidency he wouldn't be living at the white house for another four years, he had a problem. he had barely packed and had to move out quickly. west wing aides and government movers frantically tossed documents and other items into banker boxes that were shipped to a storage room at his mar-a-lago club in florida, along with other previously packed records set aside by trump, sometimes erratically so. >> we done have to read the whole thing. >> they don't, like, go to the oval office and get stuffed in documents. aren't they documents you have

to read in a very controlled, sealed room that you check into? >> yeah. >> you see the documents, then you leave. there is no leaving with them. >> certainly, some of the top secret documents that they recovered, if you look at the list of items they got, reportedly were that. yeah, you couldn't just haul them out of there. he knew what he was doing. mika, after they were, like, no, he packed in a hurry, actually, no. no. >> no. >> then he had a trump's spokesperson blaming the general services administration, saying, oh, well, anything that they shipped down, they -- it was the gsa. talk to them. the gsa quickly responded. the responsibility for making decisions about what materials are moved rests entirely with the outgoing president and their supporting staff. so, in essence, trump didn't take documents. or they were planted. but if he did take the

documents, they weren't classified. or if they were classified, he declassified them. or it's all a hoax. or -- you're going to love this one -- obama is to blame because he did the same thing. another lie thrown against the wall. or shot out of the fire hose of falsehoods. we can use a more apt russian metaphor. another lie disproven. the quote, donald trump's former national security adviser john bolton, when somebody begins to concoct lies -- and that is pleural -- lies like this, it shows a real level of desperation. let's bring in right now nbc news and msnbc legal analyst, andrew weisman. he's also the former general counsel of the fbi. served as lead prosecutor in the mueller special counsel office.

thank you for being with us, andrew. you've seen one lie after another lie. this sounds familiar to you, i am sure, but as i was explaining earlier, last hour, it's one thing when you're having a mueller investigation with the political pressure around it. it is quite another when you have the doj looking through information the fbi has gone through. we're suddenly out of the political realm, and we're right in the middle of the criminal -- of a criminal probe. it really doesn't matter what the doj said about acting presidents in '72 or '73, whatever you guys had to worry about. all doj had to look at is, did he break the law or not? >> yeah. we're in a situation now, which is unusual for the former president, where facts actually matter. >> right. >> so the defense du jour, which, you know, every day, as you pointed out, there is a new

really ridiculous defense, i actually think is only hurting the former president. you know, the first thing that doj is going to be concerned about is do they have everything? do they know where everything is? in other words, have they scooped up all of the classified material? who had access to it? they're going to be fingerprinting, looking at surveillance tapes, interviewing witnesses, probably putting witnesses in the grand jury. once they do that, they're also going to be looking at potential criminal charges and who can be charged, whether it's the former president and additional people. that is an area where one of the things i think is going to weigh heavily in the department of justice decision is not just what the president did in taking these documents, but the series of lies. that's why you saw obstruction charged in the search warrant.

that is a crime that doj takes really seriously. it goes to the heart of what the department of justice does. >> yeah, can you help me -- can you help me out on this one quickly? of course, we're finding out now that they have surveillance footage that shows the removal of boxes from storage room. this is just reporting. we don't know if the reporting is accurate or not, but it certainly lines up with this investigation and the way it's broken out. but the doj contacted trump. trump's people apparently moved things out of the storage area, according to the reporting. then a lawyer signed a document, an assurance to the doj that they'd returned all of the classified material. that ended up being a lie. does that stick with the lawyer, or is that on donald trump? because the lawyer was, of course, signing the document for donald trump as his legal

representative. >> yeah, great question. so it really looks like, you know, the government tried here to do everything right. they issued a subpoena. they made sure and got representations that everything was returned. lo and behold, they know that's not true, either through witness or, as you said, through surveillance tapes or both. and they got this representation from the lawyer. now, the lawyer is probably in some trouble if the lawyer did that knowingly. also, if the lawyer did that based on consultation with the former president, the former president is the one, donald trump is the one who is going to be in trouble. the direct analogy is, that is exactly what happened with paul manafort. paul manafort had a lawyer make a false representation to the department of justice. we charged paul manafort with lying to the department of

justice. he pled guilty to that. the lawyer was simply a conduit for the principal's lie. if that's what happened here, then donald trump is the one who will bear the brunt of the department of justice's wrath. >> andrew, good morning. it is jonathan. one of the numerous excuses we heard over recent days from the former president is the idea that all these documents were declassified, whether there was a standing order he always had at the white house, which john bolton said it was not true, or he'd never heard of it, or he had declassified them upon his departure from office. presidents have broad declassification powers. walk us through, though, there is a process, right? it is not just waving a magic wand. is there any evidence that that process was enacted, and then does it even matter? shouldn't he have not had the documents, whether they were classified or not? >> great questions. let's start with, legally, it does not matter.

because two, if not three of the crimes that were charged in the search warrant, parenthetically, they're not limited to charging only those three crimes. they can use the evidence they found to prove any crimes. even if they were only focusing on those three crimes, two out of the three clearly don't require the information to be classified. the third, it is arguable it doesn't, as well, but i do think the espionage act, donald trump has a little bit of a stronger argument. then there is a factual issue which you're raising, jonathan, were they, in fact, declassified? even if this were a legal defense, which it is not. yes, there is a process. so the president, while he was president, certainly not while he was the former president, he can blow through those processes and say, you know, i decided not to follow them.

he is the president, after all, and he wouldn't have to do what the rest of us would have to do in the government. the real issue is, it makes no sense whatsoever. this story has, i'm sure, zero documentation to support it. it makes no sense that all of these documents, boxes and boxes of documents, were going from the oval office to the residence so he could read them. then he willy-nilly decided everything that went from one place in the white house to another place in the white house was going to be declassified? and he decided it was going to be appropriate to declassify things involving such serious matters as nuclear capabilities? i mean, the whole story is preposterous. finally, the department of justice is in the process of investigating, so people like kash patel, who are making these claims, they can certainly be put in the grand jury to have to testify under oath. so they can't just say these lies to the public. they're going to have to repeat

them under oath to a grand jury. it'll be interesting to see whether that, in fact, happens. >> andrew, i'm curious, a couple questions leading to the same thing here. the types of documents, the fact there were boxes of them, so multiple documents, two things. merrick garland had his news conference after the search. is it at all possible he was able to confirm anything before he went out and spoke to the public in terms of what they were looking for was, in fact, retrieved? that seems like a quick turnaround. follow-up question would be, how long to process these documents, to confirm or not, that the fbi was able to seize exactly what they were looking for? >> those are great questions. i think that is, if i were in the department, that would be the thing i would most worry about right now. it would not be the criminal case. it would be the national

security interest. because we know they got documents, but they have to be worried about essentially the chain of custody of those documents. do they have everything? has anything been shared in substance or actually physically shared with the foreign adversary? that is a tough thing to investigate. surveillance tapes will certainly be of use. there are reports that the department of justice and the fbi are fingerprinting the documents, which is obviously a really good step to see. they can also see whether the documents were copied. obviously, they have witnesses, so there are a lot of different steps. that is going to be the critical question, whether they actually have obtained everything. then even the stuff they've obtained, do they have any evidence and can they document that they have not been shared in any way, shape, or form?

>> andrew, you wrote this last week, let's stop falling for trump's diversionary tactic, focusing on his latest defense du jour, and, instead, keep asking why he still said he did not take the documents and why didn't he return them, what he did with them and/or was planning to do with them. andrew, it is such a great point. again, as bannon says, you just throw stuff at the wall and just get people running around in circles. it's what the russians have done for years. they just lie and lie and lie. they call it the fire hose of falsehoods. that's what trump has done here. we've counted, what, six, seven lies he's told already, and stupid people out there, people who are fascists or people who don't know any better, get their news from other people who lie,

people are buying into it. oh, obama did this same thing. or, oh, he cooperated with them. oh, it was a raid. but, again, what responsibility does the media have to not spend too much time answering to all of these preposterous lies and, instead, focus on, you're right, the questions? why did he take the classified documents? why didn't he return the classified documents when it was ordered to do so? why did he lie about returning the classified documents? what exactly did he have, those top secret classified documents for in mar-a-lago, when he knew he wasn't supposed to have tell me this? >> yeah, look, donald trump is really good with the media. he was before he was the president. he was while he was the president. so he knows that when he raises these kinds of defenses, as ridiculous as they are, they will at least get some coverage.

but, to me, as i said, within the department of justice, these false statements are actually going to hurt him from a legal perspective, even if not from a political perspective. but, to me, also, the other issue is, you know, he's talking and repeatedly putting out press statements, and not a single one addresses why did he have these documents and why didn't he return them? that's, to me, the number one issue. what was he planning on doing with top secret information? we don't know the content of them, but if the reports are that it was nuclear capabilities, why, on god's green earth, is he taking that information? what did he do with it or was he planning on doing with it? those are the critical questions he still has not answered. >> former fbi general counsel and an nbc news analyst, andrew wiseman. thank you very much for your insight this morning. let's bring the former deputy assistant director of the

fbi's counterintelligence division in, peter. >> what was it -- >> text messages? >> all the stuff that said donald trump did horrible things in russia. the steel dossier, which we didn't believe from the start, i must say, here. i want to read this first. wikipedia talks about "the wall street journal" investigation. comprehensive review in february 2018 of strzok's messages concluded the tax critical of mr. trump represented a fraction of roughly 7,000 texts, stretching across 384 pages and show no evidence of a conspiracy against there trump. that is, of course, from mr. murdoch's "wall street journal." despite that fact, i put that out there.

the fbi makes mistakes. the church makes mistakes. people make mistakes. they screw up. should this be any reason for americans to not trust that what the fbi and doj are doing now is in pursuit of protecting classified documents? >> absolutely, the american public should trust what the fbi is doing. what's funny, i think back. the year and a half i spent with the team looking at hillary clinton's use of a private email server, there was no concern, no outrage on behalf of any republican as we used search warrants, as we went out and did a very invasive investigation to try and get to the bottom of what she did or didn't do. so it's not that the fbi is targeting any one side or the other. what you see is the fbi going out on a day in, day out basis, objectively investigating allegations of law. it just so happens that the only thing that tends to come up in the right-wing ecosphere, whether in the media, on the

hill, with trump, is those things where they take a front because it affects them. there is violence when the fbi is investigating hillary clinton. there is violence when the fbi is doing things that isn't targeting them. i think this is a one-sided narrative that has been developed and amplified, particularly by president trump, going back to 2015 and 2016. >> certainly didn't complain about the fact that the fbi, during the investigation, fbi was investigating hillary clinton. there would regularly be leaks from fbi agents, not a particularly liberal organization, to news outlets about investigations that damaged hillary clinton's political campaign. no concerns there. let's bring us to where we are right now. i saw something that you wrote in response to david brooks' op-ed that said, i believe, did the fbi just re-elect donald

trump? i have great respect for david, but that seems about as wrong of a question as you can ask at this time. my opinion is, if, in fact, an information to protect classified documents and seek the truth and possibly hold donald trump accountable for putting classified information in dangerous hands, if that re-elects him, so be it. shouldn't we just be concerned about getting the documents back and pursuing justice? >> i think that's absolutely right. i mean, i share the same respect for david brooks. i think, in this case, though, the question of donald trump, he has spent the entirety of his adult life living on the margins of the law, pushing up to the edge, seeing what he can get away with, then taking a step or two beyond that. when we look at what he did over the course of his administration, certainly right now, the things at mar-a-lago, whether withheld initially from the national archives, whether

later withheld from the fbi, there is a point where no man is above the law. there comes a point that there are things that you do, if you are holding these highly, highly classified documents, these things that, if they fell into the hands of an unauthorized party, a russian or chinese intelligence officer, would cause massive damage. if you held on to that after requests from the national archives, through the fbi, you should be held accountable for that. to simply say that, well, somebody, because of who they represent in our political discourse, is immune from any sort of action investigatively, let alone prosecution, that makes no sense. >> peter, do you know anything about how long the process would take to confirm that trump indeed had something illegally, how long fingerprint testing, testing to see whether or not things were copied or shared, that process? is there a way to determine how long this would take? >> certainly, it is a great

question. certainly, weeks to months. i mean, this is not a new process. we did this during the clinton investigation and in other investigations. typically, there is a two-part process going on. the first is, all of this material needs to be sent to the various components of the u.s. intelligence community that may have contributed reporting. who have sources and methods. whether it is a human source, say, you know, in beijing, whether it is a satellite system, whether it is an advanced weapons intercept technology. all this needs to go to the various elements of the intelligence community to say, is this your information? is it appropriately classified? is it still classified? then that takes time. they have to research that. they have to kind of dive into it and respond. the second thing, testing for latent fingerprints and looking for evidence on the documents themselves, again, that's a more rapid process. but, again, things that come up -- say you get a fingerprint. if it is a clearance holder, somebody who worked in the u.s.

government, somebody who has been arrested, you may have a record of who that fingerprint belongs to. you could also come up with fingerprints or other evidence that doesn't match anything you have on file. that may or may not take a lot more additional investigation to figure out who handled those documents in a physical sense. >> former deputy assistant director of the fbi's counterintelligence division, peter strzok, thank you for come on. >> greatly appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," much more on the search of trump's florida home, including the new dangers that law enforcement members are facing. those specifically involved in the investigation and beyond. plus, we'll go to two key states ahead of tomorrow's primary. as liz cheney seeks to overcome a massive deficit. and sarah palin seeks to return to the national spotlight. also ahead, it is one year to the day of the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan. we'll take a look at some of the drastic changes that have taken place in the country.

we're back in a moment. republicans in congress call them "entitlements." a "ponzi scheme." the women and men i served with in combat, we earned our benefits. just like people earned their social security and medicare benefits. but republicans in congress have a plan to end so-called "entitlements" in just five years. social security, medicare, even veterans benefits. go online and read the republican plan for yourself. joe biden is fighting to protect social security, medicare and veterans benefits. call joe biden and tell him to keep fighting for our benefits.

thinkorswim® by td ameritrade is more than a trading platform. it's an entire trading experience. with innovation that lets you customize interfaces, charts and orders to your style of trading. personalized education to expand your perspective. and a dedicated trade desk of expert-level support. that will push you to be even better. and just might change how you trade—forever. because once you experience thinkorswim® by td ameritrade ♪♪♪ there's no going back. ♪ ♪ ♪♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. ♪♪

it's time for the biggest sale of the year, on the sleep number 360 smart bed. snoring? it can gently raise your partner's head to help. voltaren. the joy of movement. our smart sleepers get 28 minutes more restful sleep per night. all smart beds are on sale. save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. ends monday. age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. an amusement park is like whooping cough, it's not just for kids. whooping cough is highly contagious for people of any age. and it can cause violent uncontrollable coughing fits. ask your doctor or pharmacist about whooping cough vaccination

because it's not just for kids. 32 past the hour. today marks one year since afghanistan returned to taliban rule. a recent piece in "the washington post" examines what the year has looked like in different cities and for different afghanistan citizens. joining us now, afghanistan and pakistan bureau chief for "the washington post," susana george. and the awe for of "the afghanistan papers." susana, i'll start with you. here's one story. quote, in the city of marja, mechanic hajji trojan musafir had to rebuild his storefront three times over the course of the war.

metal filings littered the floor. the shop's walls covered in grease. each time i started from scratch, and each time i had less money. the shop has gotten smaller and smaller. it is now about half the original size, he estimates, and fewer customers than ever come in to ask for help repairing their motorcycles. around 53 years old, musafir never asked the taliban for help. he doesn't feel they have enough money to rebuild the country and doesn't feel aid. he said, even with the bad economy, we prefer peace. during the war, not a single bird could fly from here to there, he said, pointing from one row of shops to another. yet, watching his village sink deeper into poverty has dulled the joy he first felt as the war ended. what else can we do, he asked. we all need to start our new lives.

susannah, is it the falling deeper and deeper into poverty that is the prevailing situation in afghanistan, or are there others? >> if there is one thing everyone in afghanistan with agree on right now, it is that the economic situation is in shambles. the country has been in economic crisis, and it is affecting everybody. people from kabul, where i am joining you from now, the afghan capital, to people like that mmc meca the country. people thought peace would bring prosperity with it. no matter how the war ended, if it were through a peaceful settlement between the taliban and the afghan government, or if the taliban took over the country, things would get better.

instead, people's daily lives have not. people are earning less, and people have less -- there's less health care services available to people. there's fewer secular schools open to people who want their children to have a secular education. so while the war is over, people's lives continue to be haunted by it. >> craig, good morning. it is jonathan. you're a year out. we have the legacy of president biden's decision to withdraw the military from afghanistan being debated yet again. this administration saying that defending the choice, say in many ways, afghanistan is as safe as before. they point to the strike of a week, two weeks ago that killed the al qaeda leader, as proof that this over the horizon method can work. others across the aisle disagree, saying it is not safer. where does things stand a year after the troops left? >> jonathan, a year later, i

think the american people are still really trying to come to grips with this idea that they lost the war to the taliban. this is the longest armed conflict in united states history. i think people are haunted by those images of our withdrawal by the u.s. military planes trying to evacuate people a year ago. this is a very painful moment in u.s. history. our political leaders really haven't come to grips with it either. as you know, the u.s. congress several months ago approved the creation of a commission to try to figure out what happened in afghanistan, what went wrong. not just at the end, and certainly the biden administration owns the failures of the evacuation, but for 20 years, the mistakes the united states made in afghanistan. this is something our government still hasn't wrestled with. both parties are responsible. four presidents. we're seeing, as susannah described, the results are being

bore by the afghan people. this is a painful part of our history, and i'm afraid it'll take time before we're able to come to grips with it. >> to that point, susannah, boy, when the pullout began to happen, there was so much concern about what would become of afghan women. can you describe what you are hearing in terms of young women and girls, all afghan women, their safety? >> you only need to look back a few days to the last protest that was attempted by afghan women here in kabul. it was met with force by taliban fighters. women were beaten in the streets. some were arrested. others were detained. journalists who were covering the protest were detained. that just gives you one idea of how the average taliban fighter feels about the rights of women. not only the rights of women, but women's rights to express

themselves in public. what we've seen over the past year is women slowly fading from the public space in afghanistan. in rural villages, women didn't play a large role in the public space, but in cities, they did. so it's been a drastic, really painful change for a lot of these women who are used to being on camera as tv anchors and who can no longer do so for fear of safety, or are used to going to work and are no longer able to do so. there was a protest that some women were trying to organize today, but they were unable to find a part of kabul that was safe enough for them to do so. instead, they had to protest indoors. they gathered inside a small room and commiserated the day together. >> craig, how has the u.s. position on the taliban evolved, especially in recent weeks? with information we've learned about the taliban, some of

which, i would assume, the administration already knew. it is not as if they had turned over a new leaf. but where does the relationship go from here and the u.s. position on afghanistan go from here? >> it is a delegate situation. the united states, of course, was fighting the taliban for so many years. now, you know, there's no question, the taliban is in charge. it is control and power, and it is firm in afghanistan. how does the united states deal with that? it is not going to recognize the taliban government any time soon, even though the taliban, of course, would like that. they'd love for the united states to open an embassy and have diplomatic relations. but you have to remember, too, the united states really had financed the afghan government for the better part of 20 years. the salaries of government workers were paid by the united states. one reason we're seeing this economic hardship right now, the major reason, is united states

has turned off the taps of all the money we were spending in afghanistan. afghanistan's economy was a war economy for 20 years, and now they're having to deal with a crisis because the united states isn't spending all this money in afghanistan. in washington, the biden administration certainly, you know, bears some responsibility for the economic climate there, but it doesn't want to give the taliban any credence. it doesn't want the taliban to keep take away the rights of women. so this is a real tension. i don't think the biden administration has a really clear policy for how it want to deal with the taliban going forward. you also have security questions, can the united states deal with the taliban on common security threats, such as islamic state, and what about, as you mentioned earlier, the presence of the al qaeda leader in kabul. these are questions america is wrestling with, and it is

unclear how it'll affect their relationship with the taliban. >> susanna george and craig whitlock, thank you for coming on. coming up, we'll head to wyoming, where one of president trump's biggest political targets could be headed for a political defeat. but would a loss in tomorrow's primary end liz cheney's political career or launch it to the next level? "morning joe" will be right back. oh, i can tell business is going through the “woof”. but seriously we need a reliable way to help keep everyone connected from wherever we go. well at at&t we'll help you find the right wireless plan for you. so, you can stay connected to all your drivers and stores on america's most reliable 5g network. that sounds just paw-fect. terrier-iffic i labra-dore you round of a-paws at&t 5g is fast, reliable and secure for your business.

age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein.

when moderate to severe ulcerative colitis persists... put it in check with rinvoq, a once-daily pill. when uc got unpredictable,... i got rapid symptom relief with rinvoq. check. when uc held me back... i got lasting, steroid-free remission with rinvoq. check. and when uc got the upper hand... rinvoq helped visibly repair the colon lining. check. rapid symptom relief. lasting, steroid-free remission. and a chance to visibly repair the colon lining. check. check. and check.

rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin cancer; death, heart attack, stroke, and tears in the stomach or intestines occurred. people 50 and older... with at least 1 heart disease risk factor have higher risks. don't take if allergic to rinvoq... as serious reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. put uc in check and keep it there, with rinvoq. ask your gastroenterologist about rinvoq. and learn how abbvie could help you save. this is xfinity rewards. ask your gastroenterologist about rinvoq. our way of showing our appreciation. with rewards of all shapes and sizes. [ cheers ] are we actually going? yes!! and once in a lifetime moments. two tickets to nascar! yes! find rewards like these and so many more in the xfinity app.

the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. it is a door donald trump opened to manipulate americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law. >> that was congresswoman liz cheney's closing argument in a

campaign ad defending her work as vice chair of the january 6th select committee, as she seeks re-election. she is facing a fierce battle in wyoming after former president trump said she's, quote, top of the list of republicans he wants to oust from congress. according to recent polling, her opponent, harriet hageman, currently holds a massive lead after she allied herself with the former president. joining us now from jackson, wyoming, nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard. vaughn, what's the latest? >> reporter: good morning, mika. you know, if you talk to folks around here, they'll tell you a story about the adventures of louis and clark. as they made their way west, they came here to the grand tetons, which is a massive mountain range, about 5 miles from where we are standing now. and when they got to the tetons, though, they realized it wasn't those steep, jagged mountains that were in their way.

it was the snake river, this torrent river that took them days to figure out how to cross. it was dangerous. in many ways, as liz cheney has focused her campaign on the idea of saving democracy and this republican party, it is the wyoming voters that are, in so many ways, her snake river. ultimately in the next 48 hours, we'll have an understanding of just how much wyoming voters wanted to reject liz cheney. she has made this campaign about january 6th, about donald trump, about loyalty to this republican party. but voter after voter who we have talked to have used the word "traitor" to describe her. betrayal. this is a family that was first elected to this lone congressional seat back in 1978, when dick cheney represented the state. you know, the cheney side of the republican party will tell you that cheneys have never lost here in wyoming. yet, tomorrow, she is on the cusp of that happening. i was talking with several hageman aides last night. the way they put it to me was

liz cheney made january 6th and trump her number one issue. in their own internal numbers, just 12% of wyoming voters here said that january 6th was their top issue. that is why, when you saw donald trump come here earlier this summer, you saw thousands line up in the biggest gathering here in wyoming history. the cheney side of this, they're relying on democrats to come out and vote and change their party registration tomorrow, which they are able to do here in the state of wyoming. but the hagueman folkman hagema said, cheney could get every registered democrat to vote for her, and it wouldn't be enough to pull off a win against hageman. >> goodness. what then for liz cheney? does she head home and, you know, find something else to do, or do you see, perhaps, another political run for office for dick cheney's daughter? by the way, the ad her father did for her was really

compelling. yet, you knew when you watched it that it would be an impossible -- almost an impossible feat in wyoming, in trump country, for her to prevail. is there a political future beyond congress for liz cheney? >> reporter: you know, in conversations with aides to cheney here over the summer, they'll tell you that liz cheney was never going to capitulate. she wasn't going to beg anyone to give her money or campaign for her. she'd make her case, and it'd ultimately be up to the republican party on whether to join her. if you were looking at somebody able to make the case in 2024 that she quite literally took on the fight against donald trump, that's her. you have harry logan out of maryland. hutchinson in arkansas, flirting with potential republican challenges to donald trump. but it is liz cheney who has shown she can raise millions of dollars and would be able to make the case to vetvoters that

ultimately, she was right. if republicans struggle in the midterm elections, in large part because of donald trump's presence and the loyalty and fealty to him among these republican nominees, she'll be able to make the case she was right. she's taken taken on republican leadership every step of the kay. kevin mccarthy is here in town, in jackson, liz cheney's own backyard, holding his own fund-raising confab for the congressional leadership fund. liz cheney has stood solely here in so many ways alone throughout this fight. we'll see next year what the result of this primary is and whether she looks beyond it. >> vaughn hillyard reporting for us from jackson, wyoming. still ahead, we'll go to alaska where sarah palin is seeking a return to the national spotlight. why it's the way the state that is voting that could lead to surprises on primary day. also, a new warning from the

fbi and homeland security about a spike in threats against law enforcement agents and their families, as former president trump potentially puts them in increased danger following the search of his florida home. also ahead, the latest in the rotating excuses for trump to have had those documents in his house, is that he declassified them preemptively. we'll explain why that makes no sense. and what the actual process of declassification is. we're back in just a moment. in. time. it's life's most precious commodity, especially when you have metastatic breast cancer. when your time is threatened, it's hard to invest in your future. until now. kisqali is helping women live longer than ever before when taken with an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant... in hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer. kisqali is a pill that's proven to delay disease progression.

kisqali can cause lung problems, or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including breathing problems, cough, chest pain... a change in your heartbeat, dizziness, yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdomen pain, bleeding, bruising, fever, chills, or other symptoms of an infection, a severe or worsening rash, are or plan to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. avoid grapefruit during treatment. your future is ahead of you, so it's time to make the most of it with kisqali. because when you invest in yourself, everyone gets the best of you.

♪ it wasn't me by shaggy ♪ because when you invest you're never responsible for unauthorized purchases on your discover card. moving forward with node- positive breast cancer is overwhelming. but i never just found my way; i made it. and did all i could to prevent recurrence. verzenio reduces the risk of recurrence of hr-positive, her2-negative, node-positive, early breast cancer with a high chance of returning,... as determined by your doctor when added to hormone therapy. hormone therapy works outside the cell... ...while verzenio works inside to help stop the growth of cancer cells. diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection. at the first sign, call your doctor, start an antidiarrheal, and drink fluids. before taking verzenio, tell your doctor about any fever, chills, or other signs of infection. verzenio may cause low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infection

that can lead to death. life-threatening lung inflammation can occur. tell your doctor about any new or worsening trouble breathing, cough, or chest pain. serious liver problems can happen. symptoms include fatigue, appetite loss, stomach pain, and bleeding or bruising. blood clots that can lead to death have occurred. tell your doctor if you have pain or swelling in your arms or legs, shortness of breath, chest pain, and rapid breathing or heart rate, or if you are nursing, pregnant, or plan to be. i'm making my own way forward. ask your doctor about everyday verzenio. age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein.

some other stories making headlines this morning. investigators are trying to determine a motive after a 29-year-old man crashed his car into a barricade and then opened fire near the u.s. capitol in washington, d.c. yesterday morning. officials say the man got out of

the car and started shooting rounds into the air as the car became engulfed in flames. the crash took place about 300 feet from the supreme court. as capitol police approached, the man reportedly shot and killed himself. no one else was hurt. while the motive is unclear, a capitol police spokesperson says it doesn't appear the man was targeting any members of congress, who are on august recess right now. and new this morning, wnba star brittney griner's attorneys have filed an appeal in russia. according to her legal team, the appeal is likely to take up to three months to be judged. brittney griner, who was arrested in moscow in february, after cannabis vape cartridges were found in her bag.

russian officials say all legal avs must be exhausted before a potential prisoner exchange can be discussed. an actress anne heche has died after being removed from life support. she was declared brain dead on friday after suffering a serious brain injury following a fiery car crash into a los angeles home. the actress was kept on life support over the weekend while doctors worked to find organ donor recipients. she was 53-year-old and survived by her two children. up next, a former top official with the fbi breaks down the magnitude of what's in the mar-a-lago search warrant. plus, in the weeks since agents were in the former president's estate, threats against law enforcement have increased to an unprecedented level. and we'll look at how trump's legal issues are impacting his

polling for 2024. we're back in just two minutes. shingles. some describe it as pulsing electric shocks or sharp, stabbing pains. ♪♪ this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks. a pain so intense, you could miss out on family time. the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you. if you're 50 years or older, ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles. 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. millions have made the switch from the big three to xfinity mobile. that means millions are saving hundreds a year on their wireless bill. and all of those millions are on the nation's most reliable 5g network and most recommended wireless carrier. that's a whole lot of happy campers out there. and it's never too late to join them. get $450 off any new purchase of an eligible samsung device with xfinity mobile. or add a line to your plan today at xfinitymobile.com

these are heavyweight statutes. the first is basically the espionage statute that talks about things he may have done with the documents that would result in injury to this country, and willful -- and he did these things willfully. that's a ten-year penalty, if he's convicted. now, the third statute, which is the -- an obstruction related statute, carries a 20-year penalty and says that -- it alleges that he somehow impeded an ongoing matter, which could have been the grand jury investigation of what we now know is an espionage case. this is a much more serious case than just possession of classified documents.

>> a former fbi assistant director breaking down on fox news the severity of the statutes cited in the search warrant of mar-a-lago. that's fox news. >> we now know that the fbi investigating possible violations of the espionage act seized 11 sets of classified documents from donald trump's home. the main questions now are why were they there? what did he intend to do with them? and why did his team lie about returning them? >> well, and also we talked about it before, and again, instead of just following like all the lies, i still say -- what i saw this weekend, i didn't think the documents, and if i did, they weren't classified, and if they were classified, they were planted. and if they weren't, i declassified them. if i didn't, it's a hoax.

if not, obama did it. his people have said all of that. and then sunday, it continued after all of this had been disproven. after all of this had been disproven, trump's people came out with new lies. it's fascinating. it's what the russians call the fire hose of falsehoods, and the lies on sunday, trump was in a rush. how could he have known after getting crushed in the election, as donald trump, instead of his own election, if -- it was the same electoral count that it was a landslide, how would he know that he had to leave on january 20th. everyone knew he had to leave then, especially after his attempt failed on january 6th. but he was in a rush, so he accidently packed stuff. that's what one person said. and then another blamed the gsa to which the gsa responded, the responsibility for making decisions about what materials

are moved rests entirely with the outgoing president and their supporting staff. any questions about the content of any items that were delivered, eg, documents r the responsibility of the former president and should be directed to their office. so, you know, as i said before, you've got the political arena, which i've been in, and the legal arena, which i've worked in, and i can tell you, they're extremely different. when i first got into the political arena, i was shocked after being in the legal arena. i said wait a second, there are no rules of evidence here. there's no civil procedure. there are no guidelines to go by. people can just lie and say whatever they want to and get away with it. it was surprising to me. that's the environment that donald trump has thrived in. >> right. >> throws one lie and another lie, and another lie, and another lie against the wall, hoping that the media and the democrats will just follow those lies and spend all of their time

trying to deconstruct all the lies, trying to undercut all of the lies, which are obvious lies on their face. and then there are the facts. and there's the law. which, again, as i said before is why rudy giuliani would hold press conferences, and then he would go inside the courthouse and wouldn't lie any more. he would said no, your honor, we're not alleging widespread voter fraud when that's all he was doing outside the courthouse. we're now in the legal realm for donald trump. i know a lot of people are having ptsd thinking he's going to get away with it again like he did in the first and second impeachments, like he got away with it in the mueller investigation. but mueller said, not exonerating him, but we can't convict him. we can't go after him because of a guideline from the early 1970s

saying you can't go after a sitting president. so there you go. that was then. this is now. this is the law. this is what i love about it. what i love about it is, if donald trump is innocent, and that's what we presume him to be in america, if he is innocent, then very good. we move forward. and i think there will be some pretty harsh recriminations in the justice department, and at the fbi, for a raid on ex-president's home. if he's not innocent, if he's proven to be guilty, well, no man's above the law. and so, just call balls and strikes. that's all we want of the justice department. and right now, despite all the lies, and i've got to say if you're out there and you believe those lies, even after they had been disproven, you're stupid and you may want to call somebody -- try to get in touch with a professional to see if

you can be deprogrammed from the cult you're now in. i don't say that with any malice. i just say if you believe the lies that you've been told over the past week and a half, lies that have quickly been disproven, by donald trump's next lie. you see, lie number two undercuts lie number one. lie number three undercuts number two. and i'm just saying, as a friend, viewers, and i hope you consider yourself to be my friend, but you need to be deprogrammed from that cult you're in, and you need to be able to start looking at facts again, clearly. and you should be like me. because i'll tell you what, i'm in a very peaceful place here. if the former president is innocent, good. i hope he is. i don't want to see a former president dragged off to jail. if he's guilty, well, let the

law do its job. no man is above the law in america. we believe that. that is our stated belief. sometimes we come up short. let's hope in this case we don't. but the main thing i'm telling you is, look a little closer at the facts. you know, this reality tv show host run and american politics likely coming to an end. why don't you get ahead of it if you're a true conservative like me. if you believe in small government, if you believe in balanced budgets, if you believe in a strong nato, if you believe we push back against tie rants in russia, if you believe that capitalism is preferable to what they do in china, if you believe people like margaret thatcher turned great britain around and turned it into a stronger country that ronald reagan checked a lot of the most extreme elements of the 40-year rise of the welfare state, if

you believe that, then why don't you just come on in. it's okay to be conservative again. the water is warm. you don't have to be in a cult. you don't have to follow a fascist. you can just believe in small government and a strong military and strong boarders without all the fascist stuff. try it. you might like it this week. >> when it comes to donald trump, there are three legal buckets that are creating a lot of questions and problems for the former president. the new york attorney general's investigation, the january 6th committee investigation, and, of course, the fbi search of his florida home. let's get to the latest on that, because right there is where the president has many, many explanations. the fbi and the department of homeland security are both out this morning with warnings about a dangerous uptick in threats

against law enforcement following their lawful, peaceful search of mar-a-lago. nbc's senior washington correspondent hallie jackson has the details. >> reporter: stepped up security this morning around the country after a new warning about a spike in threats against law enforcement agents and their families. the joint bulletin from the fbi and homeland security warning of more calls for violence against federal law enforcement, government, and judicial officials after that search of mar-a-lago last week. agents seizing 11 sets of top secret documents. and now, the top democrat and republican on the senate intelligence committee, are pushing the biden administration to show them exactly what exactly those materials are, and are calling for a damage assessment, a move echoed by some democrats, sounding the alarm about the documents. >> it's so important that these documents remain in safe

locations. and mar-a-lago, where you can check out croquet sets and golf clubs, that's not one of them. >> reporter: but the top republican on the house intelligence committee down playing concern. >> we don't know what they are. we don't know if they rise to the level of being a national security threat. >> reporter: new fallout after a report in the new york times that a trump attorney told the government in june that all material marked as classified at the former president's estate had been returned. the paper, citing four people with knowledge of that document. nbc news has not reviewed it. a trump spokesperson blasting what they describe as suggestive leaks and no hard facts. and while mr. trump's team told fox news he had a standing order to declassify anything taken from the oval office to the white house residence -- >> i think that claim is almost certainly a lie. >> reporter: his former national security adviser says he doesn't believe that's the case. >> it would have to be documented what they were, each document, so that people would know what had been declassified.

i know of no logistical or paper train at all that says what is declassified and what's not. >> all right. that was nbc's hallie jackson. i just want to say quickly, we showed a clip of congressman turner saying he didn't know, the senior republican saying we didn't know what was in the documents. he's right. we don't know what's in the documents. let's wait and see. but i want to point him out today, i'm clad hallie jackson had a clip of him. i've been saying i want republicans to go out and support their law enforcement officers. that's exactly what he did. in a press conference, i think it was on friday, he called out the extremists in the republican party that were attacking the fbi, saying we needed to defund the fbi, that were calling them fascists and members of the castapo. so we commend him for that.

now if 300 more elected republican officials could say that, that would be more comforting. let's bring in now josh, part of the reporting team from "the washington post." also with us, cia and fbi special agent tracy walder. she's an adjunct faculty of criminal justice at texas christian university. josh, when did the national archives first figure out they had a problem with mr. trump and documents that had been taken from the white house? >> they learned this in early 2021, mid 2021. they were beginning to do an inventory of what they had and found there were a lot of these high profile items like letters with president obama and kim jong-un, that the whole world had seen that they did not have,

and they started to look through and found they had a lot of missing documents. what they tried to do is to get the former president's team to give a lot of these things back. he didn't want to give them back, and finally around christmas, he decided to give some of the boxes back, so they sent a crew down in early 2022 to get system of the boxes. but he still kept a lot of the materials that were not his, and he improperly took from the white house, according to the national archives. so long before this investigation really came to a crescendo and the raid that happened this week, we've had 14, 15 months of the national archives jostling with the former president's team behind the scenes trying to get these materials back in a different way. >> so tracy, can we deduce the president took documents that he wasn't supposed to take and he has them or had them in his possession? and what do you make of this claim that he had a standing order that documents that left

the white house were automatically declassified. >> so i completely agree with john bolton. i find that very hard to believe. simply because that's not how the declassification process works. yes, the president does have sweeping ability to declassify documents, but there is sort of a process for that. typically, the request is made in writing by members oh of the white house council, and that declassification is usually done in conjunction with agencies that have equities in those documents. and once it has been declassified, it's always stamped with the date that it has been declassified. so that's what will be really critical particularly with those top secret documents. when i read those documents, any time it was declassified it was stamped with the date. president bush in 2004,

declassified a section of the presidential daily brief on behest of the 9/11 commission, and that was stamped with the date it was declassified. >> hey, josh, good morning. great to see you, my friend. we've been detailing all morning that the former president and his team have had shifting explanations as to what happened here. on what hand, that strategy we have seen him use before, throwing stuff up against the wall to see if it sticks with the mueller investigation and others, but it would seem to indicate a rising level of concern in the former president's orbit about this particular probe. you're so well connected in trump world. give us a sense as to what people close to him, how are they feeling and see this go down? >> i think that's certainly true. the palpable concern has grown over the past few days. in the beginning, there were folks around the former president, very close to him, this was a draconian action. and they thought it would consolidate conservative support around him. that did seem to happen in the

initial 24 hours or so. but i don't think some of his advisers were aware of the severity of what he took. the fact that they came and said there were 11 sets of classified documents. people were telling me earlier in the week, they didn't think there was anything classified in those boxes and they thought it was just going to -- it was going to be boring, cocktail napkins, schedules, things that were not interesting. i think in his orbit, what has grown is they learned some of the new facts about what was gone at the time. and the team that's around him now, a lot of his advisers are concerned, because a lot of these lawyers don't have much experience in these probes. he's struggled to get good lawyers, to get to represent him. a lot of folks have turned down representing trump over the years. now you have the person who signed this warrant at mar-a-lago was a former oann anchor, because that was the only lawyer around.

you have a number of other lawyers who have not taken these cases before, who are now in his employ. >> yeah, and to say they don't have experience in this field is a bit of an understatement. the attorney that you mentioned kept stumbling over herself, actually kept undermining the president's denials. tracy, i think it's fascinating, mika just reported we're going to have a bipartisan call from the senate intel committee, with marco rubio as well, to see what damage could have been done by these classified documents being out of control of the federal government. this is the same marco rubio who, despite all of his rhetoric, said that intel investigation into trump in 2016, said, and i want to get this quote right, that the trump campaign in 2016 created a grave counterintelligence threat.

what do you expect the senate to hear from the doj? what should we expect them to hear from the doj if they do, in fact, report back on some of the damage done? >> so, i think what's going to be really critical here, and what i have focused in on when looking at this released search warrant is title 18 of the espionage act. that is the intent to injure the united states or advantage foreign nations. so if he had those top secret, special compartmented information documents, those are our sources and methods, and those are two things that the president really can't declassify. he doesn't have authority over that to declassify the identity of spies and nuclear secrets. so i don't think as a public, as a whole, we're going to know the full contents of those documents. however, i think that's what

this senate committee will really focus on is the intent to injure or advantage foreign nations. i think that's really critical here. >> former cia and fbi special agent tracy walder. and "the washington post" joshes do ssy. thank you very much. new polling shows a boost in support for trump after the search in mar-a-lago. 57% of republican voters say if the 2024 presidential primary were held today, they would vote for trump. that is up from 53% last month. support for florida governor ron desantis, meanwhile, is down 6% from july. no other potential candidate scores in double digits. >> it's a snapshot, it just doesn't matter, for a variety of

reasons, which we will talk with our next guest on. >> bill maher touched on that during his show on friday saying the fbi search might be the lifeline trump's potential 2024 campaign needed. >> his fortune was finally falling. the big lie was finally losing momentum. desantis was beating him in the polls. you know who hates this more than anybody? desantis. i had this in the bag, and now i've got to run against president martyr. this is saving trump politically. >> let's bring in matt lewis, and david french. >> thank you so much for being with us. i'm sure you all will both agree with me, but david french, if this helps donald trump politically, i don't really care. it's not about politics, it's about the law. it's about us continuing to move

towards a more perfect union, where we want to be able to say with confidence that, in america, no man, no woman, is above the law. so politics be damned, let's follow the facts where they lead it, and let's have justice served. >> well, the last thing we want are law enforcement officials to act as pundits to sort of say, am i going to execute a lawful search warrant for top secret information that may impact national security, or should i not because it will give donald trump a polling bump? that's not the way this should go. the same with grand juries in atlanta, looking at election -- the stolen election lie. the same with grand juries in d.c. we don't want any of this to be operating from a pundit standpoint. we want them to be applying the facts to the law, carefully the way they would do with anyone else, and the way we have done in this country for a very long time with senior officials. it's not like we have never had

investigations of prominent political leaders in the history of the united states. and the president of the united states should not stand alone on top of the pyramid immune from scrutiny. >> so matt, you have a new piece in the daily beast entitled "it's time for republicans to go nuclear and dump trump," and you write in part --

>> and now, we're waiting, matt, to find out exactly what are in those documents. there's a certain presumption that could be made, given that the search warrant required certain bars to be met by a judge legally. having said that, it's going to take quite some time to see what's in there. >> that's right. so we see through a glass darkly political prognostications are

dangerous. and all those caveats do apply. i have to say a few years ago, because i always knew that donald trump couldn't be trusted. i was always very skeptical of donald trump. but a few years ago, i think i would have assumed that the feds, that the intel community, that the justice department had everything buttoned down. that they knew what they were doing and they would not have done this unless either, a, they had to do it because it was so top security and so dangerous. or b, that they had the goods that they could actually finally put donald trump away, without it going to donald trump's benefit. i'm not so confident of that anymore. i know who i trust more. donald trump is not that person. but, look, i do think that on one hand, david is absolutely right. i don't think that we should be making decisions that the department of justice should be making decisions based on primarily political

ramifications. on the other hand, we're talking earlier about the political arena and the legal arena. the only chance that republicans had, i think, of moving past donald trump was not to confront him. it was not to disavow him. it was to move past him. and they were in the process of doing that, i believe, with ron desantis. and i do think this has short circuited that. so we'll have to wait and see how it plays out in the legal arena. >> matt, you know, i'm with you, of course, have been with you for some time. i keep waiting for conservatives to act conservative again, and it just hasn't happened except with one exception. that is ukraine. you'll remember in the beginning of the russian invasion, you heard more chatter on the right, sort of a pushback against joe biden, a pushback, they were, of course, some of the most powerful figures on the trump right actually saying they would

cheer for russia against ukraine. you heard others starting to go down that path, and that stopped pretty quickly. and suddenly, conservatives started acting like conservatives from reagan and thatcher's days, and were pushing back. i'm curious, that was a national security concern. i'm curious if the same could repeat itself here when there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical about that. but that is one example of, of, of former conservatives who have now become cultists, former conservatives breaking out of their transfer a few minutes and remembering that, wait, we conservatives were against russian expansionism. >> yeah. i'm curious too, joe. i think obviously we have seen so many examples of things that honestly, the things that i got involved in politics, i became a republican and a conservative about, the party is now 180 degree difference.

we have seen so many examples. if you're a social conservative, but you voted for trump after the "access hollywood" video came out, the cognitive disnance there. or the fiscal conservative, and all the spending that we saw and tariffs. so there have been so many examples. even in the national security realm, donald trump saying great things about vladamir putin, right? opposed to say ronald reagan who showed moral clarity in his political rhetoric. the ukraine example does stand out. look, would it be possible that finally the needle could be moved? i'm skeptical of it. but if it does, in fact, turn out that there's evidence that donald trump was mishandling top secret nuclear information and documents, would someone like a marco rubio find his fight again? i would love to see it.

>> david, your latest newsletter is entitled "there is no maga movement without threats and violence." you write in part --

>> david, i'm always -- you know, the shock opera continues, and i'm the one that's shocked. but i am always shocked that those on the far right and those who cover the right or right-leaning news sources, don't see the danger that's right before them when they promulgate conspiracy theories and the hatred of donald trump.

>> mika, they do see and they don't care. they don't care. there's that much hatred that is on the far right, right now where they know exactly -- like, this is not day one of this phenomenon. this is year seven of this phenomenon on the right, where there is extremist rhetoric, results in extremist actions. and so by now this is known. by now this is known. so far right media is intentionally whipping up the far-right public into a fervor. and some of them we now know and we've seen this now, some of them choose violence. all of this civil war talk, 99% of it is just people mad online. but a few of them pick up a rifle and do something about it, or pick up a weapon and do something about it. we saw that last week in cincinnati, and we've seen it across the country. look, i mean, this isn't just an isolated instance when you see

threats, violence. there was a reuters study that tracked about 850 individual threats against even local election workers by trump supporters in 2020 into 2021. it's a terrifying environment and people know what they're doing when we are whipping up this fervor. >> you know, david, you're right, some choose violence. just to underline to people at home who don't understand the intensity of this cult-type behavior. so you, for seven years, you've been the target of doxing, of threats, a lot of really horrible, horrible things. >> yeah. >> and i was accused of being a murderer for, you know, 12, 13 times by the president. both of us had security problems after that. and yet, all of my friends

and -- not all of my friends, but a lot of my friends, and i would guess probably 95% of the people that i grew up with at first baptist church in pensacola in meridian, mississippi, and the church i went to in tuscaloosa, alabama, i bet they voted for donald trump. and after the election, i just calmly asked, okay, so he said that i should go to jail and that i should be convicted of murder, and he spread this horrible, hateful lie that really hurt the family and the husband was begging him to stop. and he wouldn't stop. the cruelty is just extraordinary. so tell me, why did you vote for him? and there were no good reasons. one of my closest friends said, because of regulations. what are you supposed to do with that? i'm sure, i'm sure you experienced the same thing,

people in your church, people that you grew up with, your neighbors, despite the hatred level against you, they're still part of that political cult. >> yeah, you know, there's really two kind of categories of people. close friends stood with our family, stand with our family to this day. and then you take one degree removed from close friends, and the primary anger that they feel or the primary sense of grievance that they feel when you describe all of this is that anger or grievance that i have used the action of the few to turn me against trump. so they're primarily angry not at what has occurred, but because those things occurred, it's made me much more deeply suspicious of what trump is doing to this country. that's sort of the extent. but thankfully, i have an orbit of close friends who see through all of that, and stand with our family. but that's the level, joe, is this idea that the real grievance isn't that cascade of

threats. the real grievance is that you have used to the cascade of threats to turn against the maga movement. >> but matt lewis, it's donald trump who inspires those threats. it's donald trump that, after his lawyers wouldn't give him what he wanted, put out a tweet at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, say come january 6th, it's going to be wild. it's donald trump that delivered the inflammatory language. it's donald trump who told the secret service members to let people come into his rally with weapons. and because as he said, then they were going to march up to the capitol. it's donald trump that's fanning the flames now with one lie after another, turning people against law enforcement officers. it's donald trump and his allies who have put the fbi and their family members who are doing their jobs conducting that search in pursuit of the law, putting their lives in danger.

it's donald trump at the head of this, who is inspiring the violence. so i don't understand the logic. >> it's almost like an abused wife syndrome or something, where you made him mad, david, this is really your fault. you invited this. you made donald trump mad, and trump has never, to his supporters, he's never responsible for his behavior. it's always someone else. he gets to play the victim. it's never what he did to start the problem, it's your response, which compared to what he did is nothing. it's so -- i guess it's gaslighting, it's infuriating, it's frustrating and we're seeing it now. the problem isn't that donald trump, you know, let's just use the latest example, kept all sorts of top secret documents that he had no business keeping at mar-a-lago. that's not the problem.

the problem is the law enforcement after negotiating for months, dared to try to get this stuff back. and for people who are trump supporters, that is how they see everything. that is how they see the world. david, i would venture to say even my friends and family, people that i love and i know to be very good, decent, honorable people, in every other facet of their lives, if donald trump came after me today, and brought them with the pitchforks and the lanterns, they wouldn't like it, but they would still vote for trump. >> i guarantee you they would. i guarantee you they would, because, david, my close relatives, who i've known my entire life, say what he did was terrible, and i said it was terrible. and i say, yeah, but you voted for him? yeah. oh, how are the kids doing. what do you say after that? >> you're telling me that you're

going to support an evil democrat over donald trump? even in these -- so there's no set of facts that make donald trump worse than the democrats. and so much of this, joe, is the product of the news bubble that they're in. they're in a news bubble that is telling them that the democrats are a world historic threat to the very existence of this country. so in that circumstance, you know, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and we're going to have to break a few eggs to save this country. and i'm sorry, david, if you have faced some terrible things from some extremist maga people, but we have a country to save here from the historic threat. this is that level of threat that constantly ratchets up, that teaches people to excuse, to overlook, to justify or rationalize all kinds of behavior that would have never rationalized before. >> violence, they excuse violence. and that's what they're doing.

>> matt lewis and david french, thank you both for this important conversation. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll go live to alaska, as former president trump looks to unseat one of the seven senaterepublicans who voted to convict him after his second impeachment trial. and writer salman rushdie is recovering this morning after being stabbed multiple times. this morning, iran, which issued the fatwah against the author in 1988, responded to the brutal attack. we'll tell you the latest. we'll be right back. moderate to severe eczema still disrupts my skin. despite treatment it disrupts my skin with itch. it disrupts my skin with rash. but now, i can disrupt eczema with rinvoq. rinvoq is not a steroid, topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day, that's effective

without topical steroids. many taking rinvoq saw clear or almost-clear skin while some saw up to 100% clear skin. plus, they felt fast itch relief some as early as 2 days. that's rinvoq relief. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal, cancers including lymphoma and skin cancer, death, heart attack, stroke, and tears in the stomach or intestines occurred. people 50 and older with at least one heart disease risk factor have higher risks. don't take if allergic to rinvoq, as serious reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. disrupt the itch and rash of eczema. talk to your doctor about rinvoq. learn how abbvie can help you save. i am robert strickler. i've been involved in communications in the media for 45 years. i've been taking prevagen on a regular basis for at least eight years. for me, the greatest benefit over the years has been that prevagen seems to help me recall things

and also think more clearly. and i enthusiastically recommend prevagen. it has helped me an awful lot. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. ♪♪ choosing miracle-ear was a great decision. like when i decided to host family movie nights. miracle-ear made it easy. i just booked an appointment and a certified hearing care professional evaluated my hearing loss and helped me find the right device calibrated to my unique hearing needs. now i enjoy every moment. the quiet ones and the loud ones. make a sound decision. call 1-800 miracle now, and book your free hearing evaluation. age is just a number.

and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein.

43 past the hour. markets are expected to open in the red to kick off a big retail

earnings week. home depot, target and walmart set to report quarterly earnings this week, with retail sales and housing data in focus. this after all three major indexes closed in the green for a fourth week in a row. the longest streak since last november. it's also another big week for the fed. july minutes due out on wednesday, will give us a closer look at whether the central bank could raise rates again next month. let's bring in cnbc's senior market correspondent dom chu. >> this is arguably one of the most important weeks of the earnings season, we have about 17 s&p 500 countries, three of which are dow members. but it's the types of companies reporting. a heavy week for retail focused companies. the american economy 2/3 driven by consumer spending. so you mentioned walmart, home

depot. you have target, lowe's, tapestry, and by the way, you have july retail sales data coming out on wednesday, as well. you mentioned the economic data. it's about housing and real estate. there's going to be particular focus on tuesday when we get reports on new homes where construction has been started, as well as the number of requests for government approval of new housing projects. so those housing starts and building permits are out on tuesday. thursday you'll get july information on the number of previously owned homes that sold during the month, as well. you mentioned the fed, all of this ties together, roux it? what will interest rates look like in the coming peekweeks an months? we get more minutes on that. they raised rates in july by three quarters of a percent, a big step to bring down inflation, the highest inflation

in 40 years. the slight, though, cooling in inflation data we just got this past week, does, mika, joe, have some traders betting on less aggressive interest rate hikes come september, so that's something to keep an eye on as we look at all this data this week, guys. >> absolutely will do. thank you very much. coming up, one of our next guests says he felt nauseous watching the coverage of the fbi executing a search warrant at mar-a-lago. tim alberta joins us to explain why he says "august 8th may become a new hinge point in u.s. history." plus, republicans are rallying around trump following the fbi raid of mar-a-lago. we're joined with a new report on why that could be good news for joe biden. "morning joe" is coming right back. is coming right back republicans in congress call them "entitlements." a "ponzi scheme." the women and men i served with in combat, we earned our benefits.

just like people earned their social security and medicare benefits. but republicans in congress have a plan to end so-called "entitlements" in just five years. social security, medicare, even veterans benefits. go online and read the republican plan for yourself. joe biden is fighting to protect social security, medicare and veterans benefits. call joe biden and tell him to keep fighting for our benefits. pool floaties are like whooping cough. amusement parks are like whooping cough. even ice cream is like whooping cough, it's not just for kids. whooping cough is highly contagious for people of any age. and it can cause violent uncontrollable coughing fits. sometimes followed by vomiting and exhaustion. ask your doctor or pharmacist about whooping cough vaccination because whooping cough isn't just for kids.

a monster was attacking but the team remained calm. because with miro, they could problem solve together, and find the answer that was right under their nose. or... his nose. your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do.

indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire ["only wanna be with you" by hootie & the blowfish] discover is accepted at 99% of places in the u.s. ["only wanna be with you" by hootie & the blowfish] age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. man 1: have you noticed the world is on fire? boost® high protein also record heat waves? does that worry you? well, it should. because this climate thing is your problem. man 2: 40 years ago, when our own scientists at big oil

predicted that burning fossil fuels could lead to catastrophic effects, we spent billions to sweep it under the rug. man 3: so we're going to be fine. but you might want to start a compost pile, turn down the ac. you got a lot of work to do because your kids are going to need it. we're following the latest

on salman rushdie's condition after the author was brutally attacked at an event where he was about to give a lecture. nbc news correspondent has more on his recovery. >> reporter: this morning, award winning author salman rushdie is said to be winning author is on road to recovery after surviving 12 stab wounds. the son saying he is off a ventilator and has been able to say a few words days following the stunning attack in western new york, adding though his life changing injuries are severe, his feisty nns remains in tact. a plan ran on stage on friday and repeatedly stabbed rushdie minutes before he was about to speak. henry reese was also injured in the attack. >> when the guy first appeared i thought it was a really bad taste prank. until i saw blood and after

that, you realize this is real. >> reporter: he was going to discuss the importance of freedom of speech. >> it is more than an attack on him. it is np attack on his idea. >> the accused attacker pleaded not guilty do second-degree attempted murder and assault charges. two law enforcement officials tell nbc news he was inspired by iran related extremism. the famed author has been a target of threats for decades. his 1988 novel "the satanic verses" angered some and called for his killing. rushdie opening up in 2012 about the pain that caused. >> it wasn't just about me. i was worried about my family, i was worried about my publishers, translateors and book sellers. >> over the weekend, kathy hochul visited the scene of the attack. >> a man with a knife cannot silence a man with a pen.

>> how critical was it that some of the audience members had a background in medicine like yourself. >> it was a large vein and it was bleeding profusely. so that was very important that he got that medical aid within 60 seconds. >> that was nbc's emilie ikeda reporting. coming up, can lisa murkowski fend off a challenge from a trump endorsed candidate. and what about sarah palin. we'll go to alaska. "morning joe" is coming right back. o alaska "morning joe" is coming right back for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis who are positive for acetylcholine receptor antibodies, it may feel like the world is moving without you. but the picture is changing, with vyvgart. in a clinical trial, participants achieved improved daily abilities with vyvgart added to their current treatment. and vyvgart helped clinical trial participants

achieve reduced muscle weakness. vyvgart may increase the risk of infection. in a clinical study, the most common infections were urinary tract and respiratory tract infections. tell your doctor if you have a history of infections or if you have symptoms of an infection. vyvgart can cause allergic reactions. the most common side effects include respiratory tract infection, headache, and urinary tract infection. picture your life in motion with vyvgart. a treatment designed using a fragment of an antibody. ask your neurologist if vyvgart could be right for you. shingles. some describe it as an intense burning sensation or an unbearable itch. this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks. it could make your workday feel impossible. the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you.

if you're 50 years or older, ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles. the unknown is not empty. it's a storm that crashes, and consumes, replacing thought with worry. but one thing can calm uncertainty. an answer. uncovered through exploration, teamwork, and innovation. an answer that leads to even more answers. mayo clinic. you know where to go. it's time for the biggest sale of the year, on the sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. mayo clinic. our smart sleepers get 28 minutes more restful sleep per night. all smart beds are on sale. save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. ends monday welcome to allstate, where you can bundle and save. isn't that right phil? i'm in the metaverse, bundling my home and auto insurance.

bundle home and auto and save. call a local agent or 1-888-allstate for a quote today. age-related macular degeneration may lead to severe vision loss. and if you're taking a multivitamin alone, you may be missing a critical piece. preservision. preservision areds 2 contains the only clinically proven nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of moderate to advanced amd progression. "preservision is backed by 20 years of clinical studies" "and its from the eye experts at bausch and lomb" so, ask your doctor about adding preservision. and fill in a missing piece of your plan. like i did with preservision" as a business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. so start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for small business: comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable 5g network with no line activation fees or term contracts... saving you up to $500 a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers.

so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. this morning we're taking a look at tomorrow's key primary races before voters hit the polls. in alaska, republican and vice presidential nominee sarah palin is hoping to get back into elected office. she is running in a special

election to fill a vacancy left after congressman don young's death in march. if she wins, the special election, she could head to washington as soon as next month. republican senator lisa murkowski is also facing a challenge from a trump backed candidate. murkowski was one of 7 republican senators who voted to convict the former president during his second impeachment trial. to add to the intrigue, alaska voters are now set to choose their candidates with a ranked choice voting system. joining us now from anchorage, alaska, capitol hill correspondent ali vitali. explain this ranked choice voting system. >> reporter: yeah, mika, this is something that you're going to see at play here in the republican senate primary and in the house primary where you see sarah palin among those running andectively for voters it is just ranking their choices instead of only picking one. you mentioned this, not all of

the candidates are happy about it but voters i talked to are intrigued if not out right excited. voters on the last frontier charting a new one when it comes to the way they vote. >> i'm excited to see how it plays out. >> using a system known as rank choice voting in marquee primary contest for senate and the lone state house seat left over when don young passed away in march. >> most people could rank four things. from ice cream to,ib don't know, i have my kids rank their favorite breakfast foods. >> and now they rank candidates. >> from utah to washington state, in new york city's mayoral race and maine's gubernatorial. here in alaska where the 2018 ballots looked like this and they could only pick one candidate now they vote up to four, all candidates from all parties listed together. the rules could vary but here if

you get 50% of the vote out right, you win. if no one gets that, the candidate with the fewest votes gets eliminated then they are divvied up to second choice until someone gets to 50% and wins. that may take some time in a state twice the size of a texas. >> don't think we'll know anything for a week or two and we won't have certified results until the end of the month. >> they voted nor the if you rules in 2020 but that doesn't mean all of the candidates are on board. >> in alaska, we have this new adapted. >> you have the ranked choice crap voting. if you're in fifth place, if you're in third place -- >> reporter: but this system encourages candidates to appeal to a broader audience. >> it rewards candidates that look for connection. and you don't have to be positionablely centrist, you need to be someone who is civil in your behavior. >> sarah palin is famous. but come on.

>> reporter: that means this election should be a little less negative in theory. >> as governor, palin drove oil investment out of alaska and quit and left alaska to be a celebrity who didn't want to be stuck in wasilla. >> reporter: but some good will toward rivals. even for the most partisan of fire brands. >> i'm very, very thankful that we have great candidates up here. you have good choices. kind of can't go wrong. >> reporter: now, look, mika in, terms of what we expect for the results on this and this isn't new to alaska which is a state that is largeeot a lot of mail- voting here. but that combined with the fact that the rank choice voting system takes time to pars out results. we don't expect to see results here for at least a week. and i also should add that in systems like this experts had told us there are systems that women candidates tend to do well in. i don't highlig t