eastern. good to be with you. i'll see you tomorrow and for no "deadline: white house" picks it up right now. ♪♪ ♪♪ aloha, namaste john heilemann in for nicole wallace. at this very hour fbi agents were on donald trump's mar-a-lago conducting the unprecedented historic search and seizure operation that yielded a trove of documents some classified as top secret with profound legal and political implications for donald trump and the party and perhaps america today amid mounting concerns with violence with the department of justice probe with the sense of information and the political firestorm ignited by the search shows no sign of dying out.

let's start with the twice-impeached pathologically duplicitous former president on the truth social platform that his passports were seized by the fbi. there's one caveat to that, nbc has not independently claimed if it is true and it could be a significant detail in what's become a stream of revelations. "the washington post" out with new details on the early stages of the probe when officials at the national archives suggested that trump had documents in his possession even after they retrieved 15 boxes from mar-a-lago. at first archives officials believed that the fbi wasn't taking the documents issued seriously and they grew frustrated according to people familiar with the document dispute and agents interviewed trump's current and former advisors asking what material was in them and who was responsible for the packing and what might still be at the florida club according to a person who was questioned,

quote, they interviewed almost everyone who worked for him, a trump adviser said, and "the new york times" out with a significant new detail that could help explain why the doj led by the cautious, careful, by the book merrick garland might have opted for this unprecedented historic step for asking for a search warrant of the president's private home. at least one lawyer signed a written statement in june asserting that all material marked as classified and held in boxes in a storage area and mr. trump's mar-a-lago residence and club had been returned to the government. a written declaration was made after june 3rd by the top national security division statement that statement not true, obviously and a big problem for whoever signed it. "the new york times" reported that a trump ally, quote, mr. trump wanted mr. garland to know

that he'd been checking in with people around the country and found to be enraged by the search. of course, donald trump and his allies who fanned the flames and the threats against fbi and law enforcement have spiked in the wake of the raid leading the fbi and the department of homeland security to issue a joint bulletin according to cbs news, it reads in part, quote, the fbi and dhs had observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of fbi headquarters and issuing general calls for civil war and armed rebellion. the fbi and dhs have identified multiple articulated threats and calls for targeted killing of judicial law enforcement and government officials associated with the palm beach search. the fbi and dhs have observed the personal identifying information of possible targets of violence such as home addresses and identification of family members disseminated online as additional targets. joining us now, jackie alemany,

washington post congressional investigations reporter, and also frank figliuzzi, now host of the bureau podcast and the man, the myth, the legend, former cia director john brennan and they are all msnbc contributors and director brennan, we'll get to you. we have a lot of questions that i want to get to you, and i missed you last week and dying to know what you have to say. jackie alemany, things moved fast last week and they're still moving fast and tell us what you know in terms of where the story is headed right now? >> john, we are still entering the question that everyone else is trying to answer which is what exactly did the fbi ultimately seize from the premises at mar-a-lago and from the president's residence. as the search warrant that was provided on friday indicated, agents were seeking evidence of three potential violations of federal statutes and including a section of the espionage act

which makes it a crime to possess or share event secrets without authorization and a law against stealing, destroying or mutilating government records, but aside from figuring out what they were potentially investigating now we are trying to nail down what exactly they obtained in that search, and what aggravated the situation so much as to force to rise to the level of having to execute a search warrants. we have just learned that kash patel is visiting the former president at bedminster today presumably to discuss the defense that he's put forward over the course of the weekend which these items were declared, which is not how it work, but some experts are saying that that defense could potentially

provide some sort of temporary boost to the former president if this does continue to escalate the way it has and he claims that a lot of these documents he was trying to declassify. >> john brennan, i come to you, and i want to get you now just because we have you for the whole hour, but i've not heard you speak on this matter and maybe you have somewhere, but the whole thing, i think you may have been off last week, damn you. let's put up the time line of the investigation just to remind people of the probe into trump's mishandling of classified documents. we started in january of this years, the national archives retreated the documents from mar-a-lago and they don't think that everything's there. in the spring of 2022, this year, the doj subpoenas trump on june 3rd the fbi senior doj officials meet with lawyers at mar-a-lago, trump is present. on june 8th, the doj asked for a second lock on a storage room door in june 2022, and trump

lawyer signs a statement according to "the new york times" saying no more documents at mar-a-lago, the doj subpoenas for surveillance footage that donald trump used to watch the entire search which he said was going on behind closed doors and on august 8th, the fbi searching mar-a-lago. >> so director brennan, just give me your top line here on what you've seen unfold over the last week and how you think merrick garland is handling this. how you think what you think is animating it, and do you think they're doing this job the right way? >> well, john, it certainly seems as though the department of justice and merrick garland have been careful in terms of how they've gone about trying to retrieve these documents that should not be in the possession of donald trump. as your chronology indicates there has been back and forth between the folks in the trump

orbit and the department of justice national archives, but it's clear that over the course of 20 months these very sensitive documents, seven sets of classified documents as well as other sets of documents or material that shouldn't be in his private possession down in mar-a-lago that these documents are something that i think were intentionally withheld from the government. it's not as though there were a couple of documents that might have been mixed in with other things, but there seems to be some type of effort and not just for donald trump and others to try to conceal the fact that he was retaining these documents. and so when i look at the labels that the department of justice said were on these documents, top secret, sci, secret documents and others it's really quite concerning because who knows who might have had access to these documents over the course of these last 20 months? therefore, the department of justice working with the fbi and the intelligence community wanted to retrieve these

documents and that was the first and foremost objective to try to regain possession of them so there would not be any further damage caused and now since there were calls for damage assessment admiral haynes and others will have to look at carefully at how damaging this information might be to our national security interest given that it was unsecured and it was illegally retained for this length of time. >> we talked since friday about the top secret sci designation which means that it's sensitive compartmented information which i believe means basically you from to look at it in a skiff. you as head of the cia saw a whole lot of those kinds of documents. you have a window as to the kinds of documents. without in any way suggesting you know what these documents are because i know you don't, what are the kinds of documents that get that kind of designation? >> well, as your other panelist

frank figliuzzi can also attest, the top secret sci classification and code work category refers to some of the most sensitive intelligence that the united states had been able to collect. signals intelligence and other types are technical checks systems that are very sensitive and to have taken years and billions of dollars to try to put in place and therefore, that ts/sci classification is to limit documents because of the intelligence so sensitive in them and it denotes that there needs to be very specialized handling and retention requirements attached to these documents, and so as you pointed out, a skiff is a sensitive compartmented information facility which is the government department agencies and it is hardened and it is alarmed and it has guards around it, so therefore the fact that these documents were held at

mar-a-lago without any of those limitations and restrictions on them really makes me worry about some of these, again, sensitive, particularly on the technical side and what it could, in fact, reveal to individuals who want to gain access to it and we know that the russians and chinese and other foreign adversaries have been trying for years and years to try to uncover our technical collection capabilities and systems because of their trying to undermine national security interests and times it's individuals either because of their carelessness, recklessness or because they just flout the laws, rules and regulations of the u.s. government that allow our adversaries to gain access to this information. >> so, frank, we know mar-a-lago is not exactly a scif, quite the opposite. mar-a-lago is penetrated and probed and all kind of stuff has happened at mar-a-lago if it's the case that there's

documentation of this kind. let's put aside the question of trump's motive for the moment which is important. foreign adversaries of the united states were to learn there were top secret or higher classifications and documents on site at mar-a-lago, basically behind a door with the padlock on it from truevalue hardware. what would they do? what would be the move at that point to try to penetrate the minimal security there is to get a hold of these documents? >>. >> as you referenced, mar-a-lago is more like a sieve than a scif. there were counterintelligence investigations related to mar-a-lago, chinese nationals gaining access, fbi miami very publicly busy catching russians and chinese trying to get around and into that property. so, look, i cringe when i think of being assigned this damage assessment. some poor souls in the government are going to have to

figure this out. what does damage assessment do? it is a comprehensive look backwards at where these documents were, what they represent and who may have had access to them. when you're talking about a place like mar-a-lago, even if you rule out and i'm not sure you can, but rule out the membership side with the hotel or resort side and it is a massive building with lots and lots of staff. it's a building that we have to assume has been targeted by foreign services while trump was president. he spent many, many weekends there so it would be a logical target and sending human sources in, and also technical collection. there's no reason to believe that that's stopped especially with news over the past year and a half that boxes of classified were there. imagine, you wouldn't get hume an penetration into the facility, imagine the technical collection is still in place.

imagine a former president that uses his phones and his devices are still targeted and so if you simply had discussions with his lawyers who probably don't have appropriate clearances and how about that ts/sci document and how about that top secret thing that mentions a source or a spy, that's being intercepted. you have to assume that when you conduct a damage assessment. when i say i cringe when i think of the damage assessment, you have to assume what's been compromised or what's been misplaced has been seen by an adversary. when you do that with this many documents that the ts/sci level you have a hell of a job on your hands in terms of damage assessment. >> frank, i'll stick with you because there's been thoughts on the matter and there's been a report, about the fact that mar-a-lago had been searched and maybe he said it again on truth social when he said his

passports were taken by the fbi. we don't know. donald trump say pathological liar, we don't know. he's told the truth in the last week, maybe it happened twice. if it's true, what does it mean? >> i always like to start with the simplest explanation although nothing is simple with the former president. the simplest explanation would be this, potentially. he likely had a black-covered diplomatic passport, a red, perhaps a red government official passport. i've had these all at one time at a time in my fbi career and a blue tourist passport. let's assume for the sake of argument he had all three and they were active and/or expireded. he no longer has a right to possess the diplomatic and government official. he's a former guy. it's possible that within the four corners, he can say you can seize government records and passports he has no right to

have anymore. >> i can see this happening, usually in an investigation but when you try to change charge somebody and you consider them to be a flight risk or because it contains evidence of the crimes they're looking at. what are the crimes they're looking at? espionage. great, so what does that mean? his travel record is in his passport. could it be possible they are looking at espionage while traveling? i don't know. your passport is not your, by the way. it's the u.s. government's. it's a privilege and they can take it back and he shouldn't have a diplomat or official passport. >> frank just laid out possibilities and there's speculation going on even if it's for sure that it happened and if you were speculating like frank did with a big basis, it's a big deal, isn't it? the version of that is suggestive of some kind of severity and sub versions of it

are obviously, kind of mind blowing. >> i agree withversions of it are obviously, kind of mind blowing. >> i agree with frank. i had a dozen diplomatic passports during the course of my career and once i left government i had to turn them in and they would void it. i would retain a voided passport, but you have to turn it in once you are no longer with the government whether it be diplomatic or official and that's the most benign or probably most realistic explanation or whether or not an old passport was thrown in with some other documents that were seized, but i do not think that it was because they considered donald trump a flight risk nor do they believe that they were trying to find out what his travel might have been. i think his travel is a matter of a very public record. >> director brennan, you are probably being modest. if we opened up your briefcase you'd be like jason bourne.

i'm sure you're soft selling that. i want to get to this defense -- and one of the defenses that we heard of the many defenses that trump has offered arguing the alternative as the lawyers like to say about -- about what went on here and this is the notion that he in some kind of way in almost like a papal way sort of declared that as soon as the document walked with him upstairs in the oval office it was automatically declassified. kash patel, one of his lawyers, if you can call him that, went on fox news to make this argument. i want to play that and then on the back side of that tell you what john bolton had to say about that argument. >> president trump, as a sitting president, is a unilateral authority for declassification. he can literally stand over a set of documents and say these are now declassified and that is done with definitive action immediately. >> so that's kash patel. he went on for much longer than that and that's the thing,

blanket declassification, like somehow if i touched a ritz cracker it would become the holy eucharist on its own. here comes john bolton to say what he thinks about that claim. >> i think that claim is almost certainly a lie. look, when i became national security adviser nobody briefed me or informed me that this policy or order was in effect. i spent 17 years as -- felt like seven years, i spent 17 months as national security adviser. i was never aware of anything even remotely approximating that policy, and i haven't heard anything of it since i left. if he, in fact, said something like that, when was it memorialized? when did the white house counsel write it down? to whom was it distributed? one other important point when a document is declassified, it's not just declassified as to donald trump. it's 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 big stack and a key point when someone is making up stories like that, i think it indicates a level of desperation. >> mr. brennan, have you ever heard of a spontaneous catalytic, self-generating declassification that kash patel is arguing in this instance? >> no, i haven't, and as of late i find myself increasingly agreeing with john bolton which i find surprising, but it's clear that this claim of declassification is absurd on its face and kash patel is trying to defend donald trump with these absurd argument knows better. it's not just the document

that's in trump's possession that is classified and it's the content and the intelligence in there that has to be declassified. so there needs to be an extensive record of it and the intelligence has been scattered throughout the national security community and also it's likely that some of that declassified information in those top secret documents and it declass, and that made that intelligence axe ailable. >> the normal is that to fientity on out if this damage must be done publicly and none of that was done by donald trump and so therefore i think it's outrageous that they're making these claims with a straight face. >> everybody on this panel is sticking around. we'll hear more from all of them, but up next, we have rudy,

rudy, rudy. breaking news that the man once referred to as america's mayor, rudy giuliani, now the target of the criminal election fraud investigation taking place in georgia, then more on mar-a-lago gate. the unanswered questions about the scope and severity of the security threat posed by the ex-president unaccountedly holding on to those classified materials and the semi, demi, rift opening up inside the gop as trump's excuses get more implausible and preposterous by the minute and all of that and more when "deadline: white house" continues. please do not go away. house" continues please do not go away. by treating my skin and joints. along with significantly clearer skin, skyrizi helps me move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year after two starter doses. skyrizi attaches to and reduces

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one-time personal attorney rudy giuliani have been informed that giuliani is now a target of the criminal investigation into election interference playing out in georgia. that is according to a new interview in "the new york times" with giuliani attorney robert costello being spearheaded by fani willis. prosecutors from willis' team asked about giuliani's activities in regards to his efforts to keep donald trump in power. giuliani scheduled to appear before that special grand jury in atlanta on wednesday. we are back with our panel. i want to start -- we understand that costello in this new york times piece said giuliani would invoke attorney-client priviledge and take the fifth. he says if these people think he's going to talk about conversations between him and president trump they're

delusional. mr. costello obviously familiar with delusional people representing giuliani in this case. i ask you, rudy's been in a lot of trouble for a while now. tell us how he got to this place as a target of this investigation and whether -- what the prospects are for him and being able to wiggle out of it. >> yeah. this has been a long time coming, john. rudy giuliani was deeply involved for an extended period of time in the former president's efforts to overturn the results of the election and fani willis has been investigating some time what she's called a multi-state coordinated plan by the trump campaign to influence the results of the november 2020 election in georgia and elsewhere. we know that rudy giuliani was one of the main points of contact for the trump campaign and for local officials on the ground in georgia to try to

overturn the results of the election including implementing the fake slate of electors' plans which was nearly pulled off in some of these battleground states. we also know that lindsay graham has been asked, as well to appear in this case, his legal team is planning to appeal the decision that was made recently, that he must testify in the probe, but this has been a fascinating case to watch that's been running parallel with other criminal investigations going on into again, former president trump's efforts to overturn the results of the election. >> so last week, frank figliuzzi, was there the cascading news around trump and mar-a-lago there were a lot of things that happened some which we didn't pay much attention to, i must say the one i regret us not getting to focus was giuliani's lawyer when it comes

to the upcoming appearance before the grand jury that his health was poor and that he would not be able to make it down. there's no way he could possibly fly to atlanta and they went to make this case before the judge. i want to play the sound of judge mcburney when giuliani's lawyers were trying to keep their man from visit the peach tree state. >> a medical professional said that mr. giuliani is not cleared for air travel. a-i-r john madden drove all over the country in his big bus from stadium to stadium so one thing we need to explore is whether mr. giuliani can get here without jeopardizing his recovery or health, on train, bus, uber or whatever it would be. the focus seems to have been he's got to be on a plane. new york is not close to atlanta, but it's not traveling from fairbanks. >> the judge talking sense there, frank. i would also say not exhibiting

a lot of sympathy for rudy's claims, bus, train, uber, john madden was a beloved fig nur america. tell us what this means that giuliani has now been named a target of the investigation and what is he now facing? >> he may be facing a midnight train to georgia, to quote lyrics from gladys knight and the pips. your lawyer being told your client is a target, it means the grand jury and prosecutors are thinking we're about to charge you. it's imminent. you are under criminal investigation and your name is in the header of the investigation. you're one of the named subjects and it's coming and it's coming faster than you think, and look, his options are not good. if he claims attorney-client privilege it's admission that

trump told him to do this in georgia. it's a no-win for him. the d.a. says that's very interesting. first, your interest doesn't extend to criminality, number one, we could stay away from what trump said to you if you think that's privilege. let's just investigate what you did all by yourself with georgia officials in an attempt to unlawfully overturn the georgia election. we're focused on you. so it's really a no-win situation. he's going to have to plead the fifth or incriminate himself. it's not looking good for rudy. >> john brennan, with frankie figs having quoted gladys knight and the pips i'll have ray charles invocation with georgia on your mind? my question is this, a week ago we would have said the georgia case really mattered. trump has a world of legal problems. he's got the georgia problem. look at these headlines of all of these things happening to him, his allies are in legal

trouble. politico says justice department subpoenas former trump white house lawyer eric herschmann and judge orders lindsay graham to tougher in the georgia trump probe and subpoenaed to testify. the one thing on no one's radar screen was the thing now, between donald trump and an orange jump suit, does this surprise you that it turns out to be classified materials and foreign policy and not something related to 1/6 and his personal businesses and other things and that might be the one thing that ends up bringing trump down. >> i don't know if it's surprising, but clearly i think donald trump has had a history of trying to skirt the law, and to do things that are rather unethical and unprincipled whether it be in the business world and in his post-presidential life the questions remain whether or not

he has intentionally lied and deceived the government in terms of what's been held in mar-a-lago and what i hear about the legal experts and others about the potential for indictments and whether it be for trump or giuliani, i'm not a lawyer and without getting too technical, i think both rudy and trump are screwed. >> that's a -- putting it in plain english. god knows you don't need a law degree to understand that. jackie alemany, we referred before to trump's declassification defense, one of many that they floated of late. is it your reporting on the story and what you get from them is kind of typically trumpian, kind of changing their story and mutually and often contradictory ways and they're flinging stuff at the wall like a bunch of crazed monkeys. do you have a sense that there's a defense that they'll settle on and that that's going to be now the defense or are you going to continue to see this arguing in

the alternative where basically any argument they're going to fling at reporters and fling at the reports and fling at the political system and see if something sticks? >> yeah, well, despite the flinging and the one thing that's remained consistent is that trump's team has not denied that there was classified information on the premises. now it's just trying to find ways to discredit the work of the fbi and discredit the classification process more broadly speaking, and again, it is worth really clearly pointing out that no, the declassification process has not worked the way kash patel has said and that would require communication and sign off from the agency head to declassify in order to make sure and ensure that there wasn't any risk to national security, but i think that the final defense of the trump team has yet to be landed on. it's something that the former

president is huddling with his allies and trying to figure out at bedminster today we knew and reported last week that he did try to bring on lawyer john sail who was a prominent prosecutor during the watergate hearings and sail ultimately said he was honored to be asked, but turned down the offer to represent the former president, so they are trying to stitch together some sort of defense, but i do think at the end of the day trump has sort of gone through most of the lawyers who, at least, high-caliber lawyers, who would be willing to represent him in such a matter and that's why we're seeing some of the most prominent voices out there are people like kash patel, lindsay halligan, lawyers that may be sort of -- we've never heard of before and do not have

experience in white -- in defending white-collar criminal cases. >> that is putting it kindly. jackie alemany and frank figliuzzi, we fling our thanks to both of you and we hope that it sticks. john brennan is sticking around for more. after the break, the known unknowns in trump's secret mar-a-lago documents and those unanswered questions raised by national security are going deep with john brennan after this message. with john brennan after this message. 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.

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among what feels like thousands of questions still unanswered a week after the fbi's search at mar-a-lago there were five big ones still at the top of our minds. number one, why weren't the documents returned in the first place at the end of donald trump's term in january, a time when you were supposed to turn everything back over to the government or in june when federal investigators came to mar-a-lago to discuss the document issue and all of these opportunities to potentially avoid an fbi search and potentially legal liability. number two, who did trump talk to? who did he consult regarding what was kept at mar-a-lago and how truthful was he with the people around him and his attorney, christina bob, for instance. were any documents destroyed by donald trump or anyone else? number four, why was there such

urgency after month of back and forth, what areas of classification. an export control center of the division and john brennan is back with us. the reason i want to start with you that that part of the doj was involved in the search and when you look of those five questions, which of those stands out as the most urgent in your mind ask which do you think we'll get answers to in a timely fashion. >> before you get to the when will they be returned and why were they taken in the first place and why were they taken in the first place and whether to take classified information to mar-a-lago, what documents to selection and why? on the return question, it's inextricably intertwined with the first question, but of special interest to me are the representations made to the government by trump's own lawyer upon further inquiry and

following a grand jury subpoena that there were no more classified documents to return, and it begs the question of whether the attorney in good faith told the government there was nothing more of a classified nature at mar-a-lago and trump in essence, lied to his attorney or she was not acting in good faith. i had a case as a department of justice prosecutor of a chinese company lying to the cessation of shipments of u.s.-origin goods to iran who they were telling their attorney that this had stopped and it turned out not to be the case and they wound up having to plead guilty to the government and we determined the investigation of the attorney was unwitting, but it was a white-knuckle time for the attorney, you might imagine, so that piece of it has to be unpacked. you know, the attorney could

have made false statements and if she determines that the client was not truthful to her she ought to withdraw from this engagement immediately. >> john brennan, i ask you of those five questions or any other questions on your mind, what are the burning issues on your mind, the things that we don't know if we need to know if we'll understand what this is all about? >> the question i have is why was he retaining documents? these are documents that are not in the oval office and they're at secure -- what possible use was donald trump thinking of making of them or what use did he make of it already? and i think there's a lot of questions here about the motivation behind taking these documents out of the white house and then retain them despite efforts by the national archives and the department of justice to get them back. as well as my former colleague

david who knows these issues very well can attest, these are questionis that think the fbi and department of justice will be looking at and not only what he was intending to do with them and what he has done with them over the course of the last 20 months. top secret sci documents and other documents, were they in fact used by donald trump in some type of unauthorized illegal matter and what is the impact of that use on national security. >> i mean, john, i'm going to speak with you and then come back to david. it's obviously on a lot of people's minds and i would say over the weekend, people who are really anti-trump, serious never trumpers who have a strong point of view which basically says trump's a pathological narcissist. this is not trying to monetize these things or trying to advance these interests. these are my documents and stomping his feet, don't tell me what to do. i'm going to keep these documents and these people do

not like donald trump and other people say, you know, there's got to be a scam here. there's got to be some way in which he's trying to monetize these documents in a much more tangible way. i asked you as a student of psychology and someone as head of the cia was once called upon to do that to say what drives this person? who motivates this person. what's your gut say about the range of possibilities that are, like, really in play here when it comes to donald trump and potentially things like nuclear secrets? >> well, there certainly is a range and i don't want to speculate too much, but we know donald trump has pursued a very personal agenda over the course of his life whether it be in business or politics or in government and what is it that he might have thought and what benefit to derive from this? did he want to refer to these documents before any types was conversations he might have with foreign leaders or for his business interests or whatever.

maybe he thought they would help to inform him or others about certain actions he had to take, and i don't know. that's where i think the department of justice and prosecutors and others will have to take a look and talk to people who may be knowledgeable about some of the reasons behind why he took these documents out of the white house and back to mar-a-lago and what he might have done with it. i think with further investigation we might get insight into what his motivations have been. >> david, as i said before, former chief of the counterintelligence and export control, and someone who if you were still in your job would have a lot of direct interaction with this particular investigation. the question of the urgency and john brennan said before that getting these documents back may have been the main thing that merrick garland wanted that there was intense urgency and we had to get documents back because they posed a significant threat and given how this stuff works and there is a riddle i'd love to talk about and how we

understand a thing that was deceiving on a relatively leisurely pace in a cooperative way suddenly escalating and what do you imagine that could be about? >> it's possible the government learn more through cooperating witnesses who are identified directly or indirectly with the search warrant affidavit that remains under seal that accelerated their level of concern and sense of urgency. there is nothing that worries the fbi and the department more than learning the classified information and sci covert information like what john was talking about is out there in the wild and in the possession and custody of someone who has a cavalier view toward protecting u.s. national security interest like this former president. so at some point they had a code red level of concern for a search warrants instead of trying to resolve it amicably

understanding that it was a dance that they were going through with a former president and they had to be mindful that there were political ramifications and they must have felt the desire to exercise more reasonable alternatives and not so reasonable, but still quiet alternative in the search of a grand jury subpoena until they determined that the representations made to them were untruthful and they had no choice, but to act and obtain a search warrant. >> david loffman and john brennan are sticking around for more with the questions that we have to ponder coming up after the break. have to ponder coming up after the break.

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or... his nose. we've got a little bit of breaking news here to report. federal prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the trump search warrant matter to keep the affidavit, the affidavit that everyone -- that has not been released and that a lot of people want to see, which would contain the doj reasonings for the search, sealed. doj citing the need to "protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security." of course a lot of republicans and some of the press would like to see that affidavit. in fact, i think we'd all like to see it, although that may not be good justification for releasing it. we're back with david laufman and john brennan. i want to come back around to what we were talking about a second ago. one of the most explosive pieces of reporting we saw was "the

washington post" saying that nuclear weapons of some -- somehow were implicated in some of these classified materials. we know that the classification on some of them does not either prove or -- either confirm or deny that there were nuclear -- that nuclear weapons were part of the documents that were mentioned, retrieved from mar-a-lago. is it reasonable to ask the question, or is it just crazy conspiracy theorizing to think about and start investigating the questions related to whether donald trump had those kinds of documents and what potential either political or profit motive he might be pursuing. what would be the reason for having those, and what might he stand to gain in a world where that kind of information is very valuable to a lot of people? >> it's one of the most concerning aspects of this. "the washington post" reporting that came out indicating that there were some nuclear-related material in these documents that were being held at mar-a-lago. and they're all different types

of nuclear information. and i must point out, though, that some of the information related to u.s. nuclear weapons and force posture is covered under the atomic energy act, and it's not subject to the declassification rules and procedures, and it is some of the most tightly held and most closely compartmented information in the u.s. government, and the president of the united states has access to that information. i remember when i worked at the white house, it was something i had access to while there, but i didn't have access to it while i was director of cia, given the supreme sensitivity of it and the very limited need to know on the part of u.s. senior officials. so, i do think it's critically important to understand exactly what might have been within that trove of documents that has been retrieved, whether or not there's nuclear material in there, and again, getting back to what might have happened over the last 20 months. i do think foreign intelligence

services, the russians and the chinese, could have easily tried to get people in to mar-a-lago to gain access to what was an unsecured facility, and the availability of these documents that were kept in the files there. and so, therefore, i do think it may have been part of the urgency that the department of justice, the fbi, and the intelligence community really felt, that maybe they became aware of some things that were missing in the white house or some files that was critically important to get back as soon as possible because of the damage it could do to national security if, in fact, it was subject to unauthorized disclosure. >> david, and of course, what the "washington post" said was, in reporting that that nuclear weapons were involved in or some way implicated in these documents, they pointed out, when asked about it, they said, doesn't necessarily have to be america's nuclear program. it could be about someone else's nuclear program that the united states government has information about, and that raises a whole other potential

specters of abuse when you're talking about a former president who, not that long ago, had saudi arabia having a golf tournament at bedminster. i do want to ask you about destruction of evidence. here's what it says in the warrant about attachment b, bullet point d, all physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 usc 793, 2071, any evidence of the knowing alteration or concealment of government/presidential records. what does that mean? what is it the doj is trying to figure out there? what are they after? >> well, that language is there because it corresponds to the language in a statute referenced on the face of the warrant that was the basis for probable cause, and clearly the government obtained a lot of information that the president remained in custody of lots of

presidential records, some of which turned out to be classified, but presidential records nonetheless, and there was an ongoing government investigation to recover presidential records, which it appears mr. trump and his team there were thwarting. so, the reason that is there is because it's consistent with one of the bases advanced to the magistrate judge for determining that probable cause existed that, a crime had been committed, and that evidence of that crime, here the concealment of presidential records, would be found at mar-a-lago. one other point about the nuclear records, john, just for a second. this is a president who famously had poor reading habits, as president. you know, he didn't like to read documents. why on earth would he choose to take among the most highly classified documents in his reach down to a florida clubhouse unless he had some illicit motivation? i mean, it boggles the mind what that motivation may be, and john and i don't want our minds to

wander too far, but he's not going to be reading these things next to his kindle at mar-a-lago. why on earth would he have this stuff down there? that's one of the central questions the department of justice and fbi are trying to answer. >> you have big minds, and when they wander, it usually takes us to an interesting place. in this case, it would be a very dark and scary place. david laufman, john brennan, thank you for spending time with us. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts right after this quick break. ite house" starts right after this quick break with plaque pso, or psoriatic arthritis, are rethinking the choices they make. like the splash they create. the way they exaggerate. or the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, you can achieve clearer skin with otezla. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring.

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♪♪ i'm not one of the individuals out there that says that you immediately attack the fbi or the justice department, but i think it's very make sure they understand the

weight of their words. >> aloha, namste, everyone, it's 5:00 in new york city. i'm john heilemann in again for nicole wallace. from the moment that donald trump revealed that the fbi had searched mar-a-lago last week and for several days thereafter, the outrage pouring forth from republicans and directed at federal law enforcement was volumable, incendiary, and nearly unanimous. however, a fissure has opened up in the republican party. republicans have struggled to coalesce around a unified strategy to respond to the fbi's search of mar-a-lago, trump's home in palm beach, florida, amid daily revelations, defenses, and false accusation business the former president. on one side, there are those republicans who still unequivocally backing the former president and casting aspersions on the fbi, doj, and other law enforcement officials. georgia congresswoman marjorie taylor greene, of course, started selling "defund the fbi" merchandise while senator rand paul this weekend called for a repeal of the espionage act, one

of the statutes that we now, thanks though to that unsealed search warrant, that the search of mar-a-lago was predicated upon. meanwhile, on the other side of this inter-republican divide, it's a shallow one, but a divide nonetheless, with the members of the gop taking a more cautious and circumspect stance, pushing for more information from merrick garland and the doj, but also acknowledging that the hash anti-law enforcement rhetoric from some others in their party could have serious and even deadly consequences. consequences we saw start to develop on thursday when the fbi field office in cincinnati was attacked and on friday, when a new bulletin was issued by the department of homeland security, warning of, "an increase in threats and acts of violence after the fbi search of mar-a-lago." on top of all those threats, the story about what happened here from trumpworld just keeps on changing, making the narrative

harder to defend for republicans. more from the "new york times." "the shifting explanations have made it difficult for republicans, many of whom are eager to please the former president, to come together with a unified defense. they are divided about whether to attack the nation's top law enforcement agencies and how aggressive to be in those attacks." democratic senator from minnesota, amy klobuchar, pointed out the hypocrisy on display. >> i thought in the old days, the republican party used to stand with law enforcement, and i hope some of them do today, because this kind of rhetoric is very dangerous to our country. >> joining us now, "washington post" national investigative reporter, carol leonnig. also, jake sherman, cofounder of punchbowl news and one and only charlie sykes, editor at large at the bulwark. you're the card-carrying or used to be card-carrying, semi, hemi, demi-republican, so i ask you. it was bad last week when we saw the republican party go after law enforcement. we talked about this on the air

last week. talk about the fissure, to the extent there is a fissure, that's developing now. what's driving the fact that at least some republicans seem to be having second thoughts about going all in on trashing law enforcement? >> well, they may be having second thoughts because they realize what a uniquely dangerous moment this is and how they are feeding into this, you know, burning dumpster fire of anger that is out there. but i mean, the hypocrisy for a party that has claimed that it is the party of law and order, the party that backs the blue, has been on display for some time. they certainly did not back the blue on january 6th, and a lot of this runs very, very deep on the right. i think it was back in the 1990s that you had wayne lapierre of the national rifle association referring to federal agents as jack-booted thugs and raised the specter of black helicopters, and donald trump has been trying to delegitimize any institution

that comes after him. it is interesting, watching them try to finesse all this, particularly with donald trump constantly changing his explanation, and so much of our politics now is just pretext. it doesn't matter what the facts are. it's constantly changing. all that matters is what side you are on. so, you know, whether it is lies about the election and, you know, we would ask in the reality we live in, you know, where's the evidence? where's the proof? it doesn't really matter, because this is what you have to believe, and it is more important to be supportive of your tribe or, in this case, the cult of personality leader down in mar-a-lago, eventually they will get around to coming up with some sort of a position that will enable them to continue to rationalize what they have rationalized so often in the past. for people who think that this is going to be the moment that republicans or the right breaks

with donald trump, i guess i would ask, where have you been for the last six years? they've swallowed everything so far. why do you think this will be different? >> jake, the thing that kept ringing in my head at the end of last week when you started to see some senators try to be a little more circumspect, people like mcconnell, lindsey graham to some extent, it reminded me of the early days of the ukraine war. there was that moment where trump was saying nice things about putin and you could see the temptation of the republican party to go down that path and it wasn't, i don't think, that they looked up and said, that would be wrong. they looked up and said, our base will not tolerate putin. so i wonder if that's the case where they've started to realize, we don't know what we're into here with trump. there could be nuclear secrets down at mar-a-lago. that could be -- that could destroy us politically if we side with him too aggressively. for some them, i wonder if it's political calculation not concern about the possible

damage of attacking law enforcement. >> i think that's true, john. i think a few things. number one, as you said, they have no idea what trump has done, which makes him particularly difficult to defend. i just want to raise something on the heels of what charlie side, which is the defund fbi movement, i guess you could say, is, you know, dangerous in and of itself, because we should not, of course, defund the nation's top law enforcement entity. i don't think there's anybody in their right mind who thinks that's the right idea. but if republicans take the majority, and i don't know whether they will or they won't, but i think it's a -- there's a decent chance that they take the house majority, are you going to have people like marjorie taylor greene and people of that ilk who want to hold up spending bills to defund the fbi? i mean, that's not far off from a possibility or a reality that

kevin mccarthy and steve scalise, theoretically, are going to have to contend with in the next eight months or so. i mean, i know it's just a fund-raising ploy at the moment, but i notice beau heinz, a republican who's likely to be a member of congress from north carolina, said we need to defund the fbi. you remember in 2010/2012, the republicans took the idea of defunding the healthcare law, something that could not happen when barack obama was in the white house. this caused government shutdowns and all sorts of legislative calamities, so is there a possibility that this becomes part of that general strategy? i would say that there seems to be an even chance that that could happen if this continues to snowball, and if, by the way, this gets worse for trump, people who are trump-aligned in the house gop, which is 75% of the house republican conference, are they going to look for a scapegoat, and is the fbi that legislative scapegoat? >> that's all really good

questions. and carol, you know, you don't have to go -- marjorie taylor greene is a, well, i mean, unfortunately, too close to the mainstream of the republican party now, but you get people like mike turner. i want to play this. he's the congressman from ohio, ranking member on the house intel committee on cnn yesterday trying to, like, navigate this situation. he doesn't want to be marjorie taylor greene, but he also don't want to be that far away from marjorie taylor greene, so he's kind of defending donald trump, and then this happened. >> do you take home documents marked "special access"? >> no. >> and yet you're casting doubt on whether or not -- >> i've been in the oval office with the president. i'd be very surprised if he has actual documents that rise to the level of immediate national security threat. >> you yourself would not take home documents that are marked "special access." you would not take home this sensitive, compartmented information. >> well, remember what i'm casting doubt on. it's not -- these are labeled

that. we don't know whether or not these are classified and rise to that level. >> turner was actually on tv last week also saying, like, there are things that are classified but not really deeply classified, they're sort of classified but i don't know. the silence there, carol. the silence of when he is asked that question, would you do this? him just -- his political future running through -- if i say the wrong thing, donald trump will primary me. it will all be over. this is what all these guys are going through right now. every moment they're asked a very basic, simple question, they have to think through every potential consequence of whether they're going to enrage the dear leader. what a railroad if you're in the republican party. >> well, it's the way things have been going for a year and a half, right? i mean, lindsey graham saying, you know, our long, strange trip is over, donald trump, after january 6th, and then changing his mind when he realized donald trump wasn't done for after january 6th.

donald trump was only ascendant as the leader of the party, de facto leader, at least. there is very little that the former president could do that would sort of shake the republican party members' faith in him, at least their public faith in him. their public pronouncements about what he says goes, because that's important to them, getting his voters. you know, i also would like to reiterate something charlie said. it's just -- it can't be repeated enough. it depends on which tribe you're a part o apparel, in america, because i remember reporting on hillary clinton's emails. it was inappropriate and a violation of, if not the law, the spirit of the law for her to handle classified materials on a private server. it just was. jim comey, the fbi director, made a decision that he felt it wasn't necessary to prosecute

her for this violation, but i remember being told by her lawyers, you know, they weren't marked and labeled "classified." they weren't properly marked, so we don't know what we're dealing with here. but it was classified information. and the same thing is being said now as you play in this clip by mike turner. it's just a remind hear the, you know, the facts are the facts, and can everybody should be guided by those, and right now, a lot of republicans are squeamish because they don't know all the facts behind the curtain at mar-a-lago, and they don't know all the facts that the department of justice has about what appears to be the much larger investigation into a conspiracy to defraud the government and an effort to interfere in the federal election. >> jake, i see you raising your hand. whenever i see you raising your hand, i know you got something to say. get in here, man. >> i just want to elaborate on the mike turner thing.

this is somebody who has access to some of the highest classified intel that the u.s. government has. i asked him last week, i said, is there any situation in which you believe the fbi should be going into the president's house to investigate intelligence that he has at his home? and he basically said it would have to be -- he basically said, no. he said, the universe of things -- the universe of intelligence that would require the fbi to do that is so limited that i can't imagine a justification for doing this, which is just stunning to somebody as carol just noted. this is somebody who does have access to this information. so, even somebody who has spent his career around this information is still defending trump and casting doubt on the fbi's tactics. and by the way, republicans and democrats have indicated they want more information on the underlying facts. that's not a controversial point of view, to say, hey, we're -- we oversee you. we'd like to know more.

but turner is saying, actually, i don't need -- he wants more, but he's saying, even so, i don't believe the fbi had the right to go in there. >> right, well, not surprising, again, everything comes back to trump. here's this piece, this luke broadwater piece, "some republicans make a more restrained case for defending trump. the former president, donald trump, that is, has worked to cash in on the mar-a-lago search. mr. trump's political action committee has been furiously fund raising off the fbi search, sending out at least 17 text messages to donors since tuesday. the dems broke into the home of president trump. they're coming after you. charlie sykes, there's not been a moment since this happened in this bizarro, upside down world, where donald trump has -- he's looked legally panicked. he's doing stuff that shows he's a little freaked out about his legal liability, but politically, everyone around him

keeps saying, he thinks he's winning, and the flex of that fund-raising effort. do you think he's right that this is, in fact, consolidating the republican party behind donald trump or is the fissure that we're talking about here something that he should be worried about in the future? >> this is the -- this is the reptilian instinct that i think that donald trump has that he knows that that -- he needs to play the martyr card, and when he does, what he can say is, they're not just coming after me. they are coming after you. and the republican base is, in fact, rallying around him. you talk to any republicans, anyone in the country, and they will say that, in fact, you know, he's under attack. that is an attack on us. so that works in his favor up until, you know, something actually tangibly happens. so, yes, there are republicans right now who are worried because they don't know what, you know, is in those documents, what donald trump has done, what donald trump will demand of

them, and they're nervous about what they will have to defend because they know they will have to defend themselves. there is no mystery about the president's lies about the election or his role in january 6th. there was no mystery about the fact that he has obstructed justice in the past, and yet, they have defended all of this. so, the fissure that you're seeing now is that sort of, you know, early -- you know, the one swallow that makes you think that it is summertime, but eventually, they will rally around him. that's what -- that is what they do, and you're seeing this right now, and i think there are a lot of folks who were, even among the anti-anti-trump folks who were thinking that maybe we can turn the page on donald trump and move on to ron desantis, what they're seeing right now is a lot of republicans going, no, we have to rally and our besieged orange god king and that is what's happening in the

short-term. >> there's a question people have been asking in the light of the way in which people like the desantis people are quaking in their boots, like, oh my god, we can't take on trump now, he's obviously going to be the nominee if he wants to be the nominee. people ask the obvious question, which is, man, is it really possible that the republican party, the party of peace through strength, the party of ronald reagan, the party of national defense and all the things that have been built on the republican party in the past, that that party could nominate someone who is a bona fide national security threat. i have a different question, though, in addition to that, the same question, just writ larger. is it possible the republican party could end up nominating someone who's under indictment for having broken the laws like the espionage act that it seems that donald trump maybe has done? >> wow. i'm gulping, thinking about how to answer that one, john. i would say that, you know, every single week, as reporters covering the trump presidency, many of us sat together and asked, oh my goodness, is this moment when people are going to

say, enough is enough? is it when he calls african countries s-hole countries? is it going to be when he gives sources and methods inadvertently to the russian prime minister? forgive me, the russian foreign minister, about a strike in the middle east. is it -- is it going to be when he sits with putin and congratulates him on a rigged election after being told, do not congratulate the number one adversary to the country? what is the thing that is going to make donald trump's followers and republican lawmakers finally break? and i can't say for sure whether someone being prosecuted by the department of justice in the form of donald trump will be that thing. i can't say that. >> jake and charlie, i'm going to ask you a one-word answer because we got to go to break. jake, can you imagine a world where the republican party would

nominate someone under indictment for violating the espionage act. >> yes. >> yes? >> yes. >> charlie? >> yes. absolutely. >> so, carol doesn't want to go there. jake and charlie are, like, yep, that's where we're headed. carol leonnig trying to maintain some attachment to a world not governed by insanity and where donald trump is the orange god-king that charlie talked about. jake and charlie are sticking with us. when we return, the ever evolving stream of excuses and explanations from donald trump and his allies about the classified documents he was keeping at mar-a-lago. it is a playbook donald trump has run many times before. plus, why liz cheney's expected defeat won't be the end of the line for one of the country's highest profile anti-trump republicans. and as salman rushdie recovers from that stabbing attack we heard about on friday, we're learning more about what

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investigations into the former president have become so common that we're seeing him employ the same defense strategy over and over and over. first, preemptively, speak to some detail that he knows is bound to get out by saying, it didn't happen, but if it did happen, it's okay because whatever, whatever, and then make up some ridiculous caveat or lie. that's just what we saw following the fbi's search of mar-a-lago. "the new york times" writes, "first, trump said that he was working and cooperating with government agents who he

claimed had inappropriately entered his home. then, when the government revealed that the fbi had recovered nearly a dozen sets of documents that were marked classified, he suggested that the agents had planted the evidence. finally, his aides said that he had a standing order to declassify all documents that left the oval office for his residence and that some of the material was protected by attorney-client and executive privilege." so, okay, to make this as simple as possible. what we have here is a story that started with trump saying, i didn't take the documents. and then became, well, the documents that were there were planted, which then became, if the documents weren't planted, then they weren't classified, and now today, it's, okay, if they were once classified, it doesn't matter anymore because the moment that trump touched them, he declassified them. that, i think, is what's going on here. we're back with jake sherman and charlie sykes. it's like a "who's on first" revolving door thing, charlie. but we've seen it before from donald trump.

is it -- is that a tenable -- is -- i keep asking the question, i know republicans don't have any principles, but my question is whether the ludicrousness, the preposterousness of arguing the alternative as the lawyers say, whether at some point that will be a thing that republicans on an issue this important will be, like, got to stay away that, it's too toxic, it's going kill me. >> well, you would think so, especially when the former president of the united states is essentially using the oj simpson defense. they planted -- think about that for a moment. that the former president is suggesting that if there's something really bad that they found in my locked room at mar-a-lago, the fbi agents planted it. i mean, that is the kind of conspiracy theory that a few years ago, you would have found, say, on infowars and alex jones' show or something like that. it is so outlandish. but what donald trump has calculated, quite frankly, with his reptilian instinct, is that

he knows that he can throw anything against the wall. he can make any claim, no matter how outlandish. he can push any conspiracy theory, no matter how absolutely baseless, and it will work for him. it will not cause a break in his party, and enough people will believe it that it will become a talking point. i mean, earlier, here on msnbc, i heard a sound byte from wyoming where there was a voter, one of the voters who's going to vote to oust liz cheney, very confidently saying, well, you know, why don't we investigate all the fbi agents who were inciting the riots on january 6th? there's no basis for that. but you get people to believe it. so, donald trump has really learned from the last six years about what he can get away with, how gullible people are, and how reluctant members of his own party are to call him out for, you know, blatant bull roar when it comes to this sort of thing. because as you lay out, it makes no sense. it is ridiculous. it is ludicrous.

but you know, right now, the vast majority of republicans believe some of his ludicrous conspiracy theories about the election, and he's sitting down there, going, i'm just going to play the same thing. worked for me before. why not this time? >> charlie, did you just bull roar? is that what you said? is that just a -- you just couldn't -- >> i restrained myself from using the word that i wanted to use. >> yeah, okay. usually people go for bull crap, that's fine, but i've not heard bull roar before. must be a wisconsin thing. jake, we were talking in the last block about the fissure, and you know, i said, shallow fissure, not a giant fissure. here's the thing that has -- of all the crazy stuff we've seen in the last week, here's a little thing that has freaked me out more than anything else, because i still am trying to figure it out. maybe you'll hold the key. on the face of out, it's inexplicable. doocy, steve doocy, repeatedly on fox news last week, and we never play fox news on the show, but we're going to play this.

steve doocy, all of a sudden, was sounding rational. let's play this from my friends at "the recount." >> destroy the fbi, we must save america. whatever happened to the republican party backing the blue? they were following a search warrant. nuclear weapons. we don't know if there are weapons, but if that is true, and they were just in the basement at mar-a-lago, that's kind of a big deal. >> well, certainly -- >> it will allow medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. and i -- you know, if you are on a fixed income, if you're older, you love that. regardless of your political party. >> you love how it sounds. >> deeply, deeply concerned about the politicization of the fbi and biden's doj. >> well, of course, the fbi director was appointed by donald trump, the former president, but congresswoman -- and just out of curiosity, are you wearing bermuda shorts right now? >> i mean, doocy, like, i don't

even get it there. the look on kilmeade's face, he looked like he was going to walk over there and strangle doocy at any moment. it's funny, it's weird. is he on drugs? is there an agenda here? is it a sign of something bigger? tell me, jake. help me understand. >> you're giving me the most unfair assignment, john, which is to analyze the personalities of fox news. i have literally zero idea what's going through their minds. but it does seem as if they are -- i'll be honest with you. it's almost like he's been put on truth serum because this is what a lot of republicans say behind the scenes, and i know that's not satisfying to a lot of people, but of course this is not an fbi agent gone rogue. this is somebody who was following a search warrant and went through a court process. of course it's problematic if there's seriously classified material in mar-a-lago.

of course it's -- and republicans said this time and time again. of course it's politically popular to lower drug prices for old people. i cannot put steve doocy on a therapist's couch. far be it from me to try, but it is quite interesting, to say the least. >> charlie, i mean, if doocy keeps this up, what do you think his odds of short-term survival are, number one? and number two, is that indicative of some -- there's been some discussion about fox news possibly being sick of trump and making the move into desantis-land over the course of the last few weeks or months. do you think there's anything to that? >> well, first of all, when i was watching that, i was thinking, i'm guessing he already has tickets booked on an around-the-world cruise because that looked like a guy who was planning for his retirement. the problem with fox news is this is a -- we often think of these things as being topdown. they are captive to their audience and what their audience demands and if the audience

continues to demand, you know, trumpist propaganda, that's what they will give them, even though clearly some of them would like to move on. i mean, you even have laura ingraham suggesting maybe it's time to turn the page. she is an absolute hard-core -- she's a hard-core loyalist, but there's a certain exhaustion. i mean, how much of this can you carry? how many rationalizations can you make? how many lies can you find a way to polish up? there might be exhaustion there. but i don't see that fox news is going to be breaking with its base or its audience any time soon. you know, despite the fact that rupert murdoch has his own doubts, you're seeing that in the "wall street journal" and the "new york post," and maybe at some point, that will trickle down, but i wouldn't hold my breath. >> i don't know what explains it. i will say, maybe for the first time ever, about someone on fox news, doocy, you go, girl. jake sherman, thank you. charlie sykes sticking around.

when we come back, liz cheney may be heading for defeat in tomorrow's republican primary in wyoming, but her fight against donald trump is far from over. that's ahead. ht against donald trump is far from over. that's ahead (woman vo) sailing a great river past extraordinary landscapes into the heart of iconic cities is a journey for the curious traveler, one that many have yet to discover. exploring with viking brings you closer to the world, to the history, the culture, the flavors, a serene river voyage on an elegant viking longship. learn more at viking.com

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tomorrow, the voters of wyoming will go to the polls to decide whether liz cheney will get to keep her seat in the house of representatives, and the odds appear to be very much against her. new polling shows cheney trailing in the primary of the republican party behind her

trump-endorsed opponents by 29 points. that's a lot of points, way outside the margin of error. no matter what happens tomorrow, cheney doesn't appear to be done with politics just yet. according to reporting in the "washington post," "cheney will exit the capitol, likely in four and a half months, as the face of the anti-trump movement that has cost her her old alliances but left her with new a next ac nationally focused. she sees her future role similar to how she views the work of the january 6th committee, blocking any path for donald trump back to the oval office." let's bring in nbc news correspondent, my friend vaughn hillyard, live in jackson, wyoming. must be awesome out there right now. charlie sykes is still with us. vaughn, you're there at the center of the political universe out there on the campaign trail, often, as is the case. tell us, it seems like cheney is not doing much. i mean, it's a little weird, right, you're running in a primary. she hasn't been seen doing a public event for quite a long time. more than a week. talk about what's going on out there.

>> right, i think it's important, her team is not commenting on the security issues. at the same time, for the better part of more than a year now, she has had a special capitol police detail following her around the country, and individuals that get those details have credible threats that have been posed against them, so i think that's important context when we're talking about liz cheney's ability to campaign. but compare that to harriet hageman, the trump-backed challenger she is facing, who has traversed this state for the better part of this last year, meeting with republican activists. i think it's important to note, you know, if i could, john, let me just read a list of a couple republican house member names. tom rice, jamie hererra bullet butler, anthony gonzales, adam kinzinger. we've run around the country the last several months covering primaries. each of those members, republican members whose names i just read, voted to impeach

donald trump after the january 6th insurrection. that entire list will not be returning to the congress next year. to cap all of this off, it's liz cheney's race tomorrow, and when i was here back at the end of may, when donald trump flew in to casper, wyoming, to hold a rally alongside harriet hageman, the talk at the time was, could these january 6th public hearings that liz cheney was going to helm, could they sway public opinion, republican voters' opinions? four months later, ultimately we're going to find out here tomorrow about what wyoming republicans who 44 years ago elected her father, dick cheney to, this very congressional seat, whether they have been swayed, to what extent. that is the case. >> there was some discussion at the end of last week when she came out and attacked republicans who were attacking law enforcement and that there was some speculation, david axelrod on twitter and others who said that maybe some of her lack of campaign activity had to do with security threats. we don't know if that's the case, but it's certainly the

case that she has had special protection for a while and she's been not doing anything like the kind of public events that especially a candidate who's supposedly fighting for her life and with her back against the wall would normally do. kevin mccarthy is in wyoming. coincidentally holding -- doing a little fund-raising on behalf of liz cheney's opponent. what does that tell you about the state of play out there? is there any chance in the face of all that, that we could be shocked tomorrow night by liz cheney or this basically -- this thing is now cooked, stick a fork in it? >> reporter: right. on the shocked question, you know, liz cheney is relying on democrats tomorrow to show up to their polling place, change their party registration from democrat to republican, but i was talking with a hageman aide who said, look, even if every registered democrat in the state, there's about 43,000 of them, switched their party registration tomorrow, they still don't think that would be enough for cheney to close the gap. that's how many republicans are here in this state. as to kevin mccarthy here, and liz cheney, i think that's where

having a conversation earlier with an aide to cheney, who noted that tomorrow's primary battle is just one of a much larger and longer fight that she intends to mount here to make sure that donald trump does not ever return to the white house. liz cheney is able to do that. she has a fund-raising network. she's able to rake in millions of dollars, and while kevin mccarthy, coincidentally, is holding a fund-raising get together for the nrsc, the congressional leadership fund, the super pac who is the right hand of his political operation here, well, they are here trying to build the republican party that is more into the shape and the image of donald trump, liz cheney has different intentions. what does that look like? a presidential run herself? that's a question mark here. and if she hasn't been able to convince her own neighbors in her own backyard in wyoming in 2022, could she do it in 2023, 2024? if there's somebody that intends to try to do it, that's liz cheney. >> mccarthy has done a fund-raiser for hageman in the

past, not the one he's doing in jackson right this week. but he's been -- he's worked on behalf of her opponent and has raised money for her. i ask you, charlie sykes, as we go to the question about what her future holds, and it's, you know, an enormous question. the woman has a massive national profile now. she's not universally beloved. there are many republicans who think she's a rino, who hate her, but there's a bunch of other people who don't like any other republican who think she's doing something admirable. liz cheney's political life is likely ending. and just beginning. cheney, in a small but influential bloc of anti-trump republicans have decided there must be a 2024 candidate who will run as an unabashed opponent of both the ex-president and other contenders who spew his mistruths about the 2020 election. cheney and her crowd want a candidate who would serve merely as a political kamikaze, blowing up his or her candidacy, but also taking down trump. so, i mean, the real question there, charlie, is liz cheney that kamikaze?

>> she might be. look, can we just -- the comment on what an extraordinary woman liz cheney is in an era where we have discovered that political courage is vanishingly rare, she is this amazing profile in courage, and people should not underestimate this. unlike so many others, she didn't run away from this fight. she did not self-exile. she had to know exactly what is going to happen to her in wyoming and decided that standing up for the constitution and pushing back against the anti-democratic forces in her own party was worth it. so, she's also redefining this whole issue of relevance. john, you talk to the same smart republicans that you have to go along in order to stay relevant. well, she's going to be defeated tomorrow, but she will be more relevant than ever. she will be more influential in defeat than she ever was when she was sitting in leadership. and that's going to be an extraordinary story. no, we have not heard the last of liz cheney. it's going to be -- it has been

a remarkable story, and i think it's going to continue, because quite frankly, she is so unusual, and there's something inspirational about that. >> vaughn hillyard, live from wyoming, what is that behind you? what tree is that? that's an incredible-looking tree. what is that? is that elk horns? is that a tree made out of elk horns? >> reporter: you're putting -- i'm a botanist here in wyoming. is that what you're putting me on the spot with? >> i'm just asking. >> reporter: how about you come out to town over the weekend and we can explore together. >> do a little reporting there, man. >> reporter: are you talking about these? the elk horns. >> that's elk horns. >> reporter: are you talking about this? >> yeah. >> reporter: okay, so, every winter, justice in the valley, just down the way there, there's the elk refuge, and the elk lose their horns. i'm getting this right, guys, right? they lose their horns and then the local boy scout and cub scout troops, they come and pick up these elk horns and then they ultimately construct them into things like this.

but then they also go and give them out around the community. it's kind of a cool trait of jackson hole, wyoming. for anybody that's never been here, it's my favorite place in america, for what it's worth. >> vaughn, i'll just point out that although you mocked me, you knew the story and it was a heartwarming story and i'm glad to have had it. so, there you go. >> i thought you were talking about the tree behind those. i'm sorry, john. >> good to see you, man. charlie sykes, great to have you on. thank you too. ahead for us, new details about what may have motivated the suspect in the stabbing attack against celebrated and marked for death author, salman rushdie. lebrated and marked for death author, salman rushdie.

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to come to the table and do more incredible things. ♪ ♪ some encouraging news today on a truly terrible story that broke on friday. related to author salman rushdie "the satanic verses" and so many other great books. stabbed several times at a talk he was giving last friday in new york. rushdie has been taken off of the ventilator and is starting to heal from his injuries, according to his agent. since the attack, we have learned more about rushdie's assailant from law enforcement. the 24-year-old suspect was charged with second-degree attempted murder on saturday and entered a plea of not guilty. prosecutors say that the attack on rushdie was premeditated and targeted and the suspect traveled by bus to friday's event. joining us now, suzann noszal, ceo of pan america, well known

advocacy group. suzann has known salman rushdie for over a decade and he deserved as the organization's president. it's good news that salman rushdie has survived. it sounds, though, like his injuries are pretty severe. give us a sense of how his family is coping with what's happening right sense of how hi family is coping and how the community around the world, has almost always rallied to rushdie's defense. what kind of response you're hearing. >> sure. look, i think the family showing a lot of courage. they are with him, supporting him. i'm sure sustaining his spirits at this time and communicating with the outside world. there are so many who are stand on vigil as he struggles through to recover from this. i would say for the literary community, it's just a sense of shock and horror and a recognition that the threats

that we've been talking about and addressing all over the world you know, in iran, in china, in russia, in turkey, also manifest right here in the united states at our own doorstep. that's hard to come to grips with, but we have no choice. >> we have the, we talk about the suspect here. you know, on friday when this news broke. i'm old enough to remember when -- really if full effect and rushdie was in hiding. people kept saying we don't know what the motivation is on this attacker. i've been to chautauqua, sometimes attacks salman rushdie, now we know what's written here. lone actor, this is from nbc news. two law enforcement officials briefed on the case said the leading theory is that matar, the accused, was a lone actor.

the official stressed that still early in the investigation, the suspect lived in the low level of a home in new jersey where there was a flag flying in his living space. we find out where iran is celebrating the attack. tehran denied any involvement, but sought to justify the attack which has been celebrated on the front page and aacross the country's media. we don't consider them worthy of condemnation or blame said the spokesman. basically blaming rushdie for what happened to him. is it clear to you as clear as it is to me although iran said they were no longer enforcing, it's still the case of a $3.3 million bounty on rushdie's head. all signs point to somebody still trying to claim that reward. >> i think it's hard to fathom given the limited information we have about this suspect that the motive was related.

whether the iranian government was involved. they've denied that. yet we know the iranian government has been active targeting other writers here on u.s. soil. there are a couple others who have been subject to plots that have been revealed publicly over the last year and a half. they're iranian american, of iranian origin so slightly different, but i don't think anything can be ruled out at this point. we know the iranian government has operations in capacity here in the united states and this individual, the limited information we have about his contacts and ties and allegiances says that this is a continuation of a war that was declared back in 1989. you know, finally somebody got to the edge of fulfilling that horrific, dastardly aspiration. >> he made the decision after a

period of time that he was just going to live his life in the open and that was the, that hiding was not the way to live. new york city, you would see him all the time without security in restaurants and other places. he always said at some point he thought someone would get to him. you wrote in the guardian an op-ed. you say he devoted his life to the freedom to write, exercising it, using his influence as a bulwark for those to do the same. it's an attack on those who treasure the right to think, write, and speak freely. we owe it to him to speak as such. reading that column reminding me of christopher hitchens who wrote defense on rushdie because it's a matter of everything i hate versus everything i love. in the hate column, dictatorship, censorship, bullying and intimidation.

love column, irony, free expression. that has what this man has meant for the literary community and the world for all these years. it is terrible what's happened but you must take heart in the faft it looks like he's going to survive. >> we are celebrating our 100th anniversary in america and so there's sort of something quite remarkable in this attack on salman is a crucible of both the perils that writers face and the tenacity and solidarity that defenders of free expression feel where we really do come together in such a forceful way and you know, we are not going to let this silence salman's voice or the voice of my other writers. i think this is only going to redouble the energy to combat threats against free expression and the freedom to write coming from all sides. this is going to be a burst of

energy that's going to fuel us into our next 100 years. >> penn america, penn international. essential organizations. anybody out there who wants to put some money towards a really good cause, send those guys a check because they are fighting the good fight on behalf of free expression for all of us. thank you for spending time with us. we'll be right back. ime with us we'll be right back. t there, but this is my happy place. there are millions of ways to make the most of your land. learn more at deere.com

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and finally, an update on that persecuted beleaguered brittney griner. her team filed an appeal today against her bogus conviction in russia. she was sentenced to nine years

in jail after authorities found cannabis vape cartridges in her luggage at an airport. ridiculous. the motion was widely expected as it could keep her from going to a penal colony as part of her sentence. all this comes as russia has recognized prisoner swap talks with the united states for the first time publicly. a spokesperson for russia's foreign ministry said quote, quiet diplomacy is continuing as the two nations discuss a swap that would include greiner and paul whelan in exchange for victor bout. thank you for being with us this monday. the beat with ari starts right now. hello. >> welcome to the beat. the breaking news tonight is the prosecutor moving towards indicting trump lawyer, rudy giuliani. georgia prosecutors say they are now on track to indict