>> just as we came on the air, polls closed across most of alaska, where primary elections are being held. as well as a special election for the states loan seat in the house, were none other than sarah palin is looking to stage a come back. but we start with the big news tonight out of the great state of wyoming where earlier tonight, congresswoman liz cheney was defeated by a trump-backed challenger. she concede herd race, because that is what you are supposed to do when you lose an election, concede. >> our republic relies upon the goodwill of all candidates for office. to accept honorably the outcome of elections. tonight, harriette received the most votes in this primary. she won. i called her to concede the race. this primary election is over. but now the real work begins.

[ cheers and applause ]. >> congresswoman cheney made a point of calling out election denying republicans across the country and hinted this is not the last we will hear from liz cheney. >> today, as we meet here, there are republican candidates for governor who deny the outcome of the 2020 election and who may refuse to certify future elections if they oppose the results. we have candidates for secretary of state who may refuse to report the actual results of the popular vote in future elections. no american should support election deniers for any position of genuine responsibility where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future. i have said since january 6th that i will do whatever it takes to ensure donald trump is never again anywhere near the oval office. and i mean it. [ cheers and applause ]. >> tonight we are also keeping a close eye on the special election for alaska's at-large

house district where former ak ank governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate sarah palin is competing against two other candidates to finish the term of deceased congressman don young. sarah palin is, of course, in many ways the foremother of donald trump's brash political brand. so it is no surprise that president trump endorsed her in that race. cheney out and pay len back in, what does it mean for the republican party and for american democracy. here to give us the latest on those key races and help us break it all down is the great steve kornacki at the big board. steve, what are you hearing out of alaska? and what should we sort of expecting on this night of nights? >> yeah. i guess patience. you should patient, i think, as we get results the polls through most of alaska are now closed. they indicated probably going to be about an hour until we start getting the results and what

we're going to get then are votes that were cast in person today in alaska. votes that were cast in person at early voting locations in the run-up to this election. what's going to take some time. what's going to take a lot of time are votes cast by mail. there's time for those that were postmarked today still to come in. they can take a while to come in. the entire process here to get all of the votes tabulated could take a while. and what's really going to slow things down in term of getting an outcome here, this is a ranked choice voting special election. so, initially what happened was they had the initial race. there were a bunch of candidates in the rule in alaska now is the top four go through to the final round. well, the thing that happened in this race is one of the top four from the preliminary round, a democrat named al gross dropped out of the race. so there's actually only three who are on the ballot for this special election. you can see, two of them are republicans. that's sarah palin and nick begich and one is a democrat,

mary peltola. the popular theory that will happen here is by being the only democrat on the ballot, peltola could come in first place when all these votes are tabulated. if that happens, then it's a fight between begich and palin to get second place. the stakes there couldn't be higher. the way rank choice voting works, pick your first choice, second choice, third choice. whoever comes in third will be eliminated. and then their supporters second choice preference from their ballot is going to get reallocated. so the potential scenario, peltola as the democrat getting through in first place and then a fight between begich and pailen. whoever gets second gets a chance to get in the rank choice round against peltola. whoever is in third and is out.

they won't do the rank until the end of the month or beginning of september. you have to get every ballot, every mail ballot, everything in before you can do those rank choice calculations. but if you watched this race closely, palin and begich in the home stretch acting like they know they're in a fight for the second place spot the winner has a real spot going to congress and the loser is just out. >> adding to the confusion, of course, is the fact that we're talking about a general election happening here and a primary election all at the same time, sarah palin's name is on the ballot twice. we'll get to that and more later. thank you, steve. we will be patient. joining us now from anchorage is washington correspondent for alaska public media, liz. liz, it is confusing and wild in alaska, as it often is especially when it concerns sarah palin. thank you in advance for helping us understand exactly what's going on. so, it's a little complicated in

terms of the actual results that we're waiting for. what can you tell us about palin and her sort of power and the sway she has over the alaska republican electorate at this stage in the game. she's a known quantity to those of us seen her on the national stage. but how have these intervening years changed alaskan's impressions of her as she seeks a seat in congress. >> well, we really haven't heard much from her since she resigned from governor in 2009. she hasn't held elected office. she hasn't been very present in the state. i mean, she may live here, but we haven't seen her at public events or rallies or campaigning for other candidates here. so she is trying to overcome this label of quitter and nick begich has been hitting her with that really hard. it's been pretty bitter between

begich and palin in this election. >> begich, political dynasty and trump endorsed palin. which is more meaningful for alaska voters? >> it's hard to say. i met a lot of trump supporters who think trump got this wrong. and it is hard to say. i would say that people who were here in 2009 might not have the best opinion of palin, but not everyone was. not everyone was an adult in 2009. that was a long time ago. palin is a national celebrity, and people are drawn to her because of that. >> what of lisa murkowski?

she voted to impeach donald trump. she is not endorsing her but endorsing her challenger and then conditioning his endorsement in the gubernatorial race in alaska by insisting that the governor not support -- also not support lisa murkowski, basically a horse trade f you will. i'll endorse you as long as you in turn do not endorse lisa murkowski, the sitting senator from alaska. do you think that's made any difference in any of this? how much lisa murkowski, should she be worried about her re-election bid? >> if we still had a closed republican primary, yeah, she would be in big trouble. her approval ratings are very low among republicans. but we don't have a closed partisan primary anymore. all of the candidates will appear on the same ballot. and voters will be able to rank them. a system like that really favors murkowski. in this primary, you know, liz

cheney was primaried and lost in a republican primary. well, murkowski is easily going to survive. she'll be one of the top four that advance to the general. so she certainly doesn't have anything to worry about in tonight's primary. >> let me ask you just one last question about the democrat who may make it in this congressional ranked choice system. mrs. peltola. she would be one of the first members of the tribal nation in alaska to make it to congress if she succeeds. is that right? >> she would be the first indigenous alaskan to be in congress. i just spoke to her a couple minutes ago. and, yeah, she's pretty excited. and also saying it's going to be a long time until we know. >> all right, liz rhus kin, washington correspondent for alaska public media. thank you for your time tonight. we'll be patient. i'm now thrilled to bring in

the host of the last word, great lawrence o'donnell. lawrence, there's no better night to talk to you about when we get to talk about liz cheney, daughter of dick cheney, and sarah palin's potential return to the -- well, to washington, not the u.s. house of representatives. >> i'm here under one condition, i don't have to say anything about ranked choice voting. >> no, you don't. >> when ever steve kornacki does it, i feel like i understand the first 30 seconds. then i just -- i'm just gone. >> it's complicated and goes on for a while. >> it is a job. makes voting a job. listen, this is a very, very special night for young voters especially because you can go decades. i personally have just gone about 30 years in the space between the time i've seen politicians lose an election over a principle. liz cheney lost over a principle tonight. the last time i saw that at a

prominent level, i'm sure it has happened in smaller, mario cuomo, 28 years ago wouldn't change his position to favor the death penalty. that was it. he knew he was going to lose if he doesn't do that. he wouldn't do it. so there is nothing more noble in politics than losing on principle. and that's one of the reasons why concession speeches can sometimes be the best speech politicians ever make. >> i think of ted kennedy's concession speech in 1980, he coined one of the most famous phrases. i guess i wonder speaking of liz cheney, in her concession speech she said this pimary election is over. now the real work begins. >> so that's what's so amazing about this concession speech. it's the most combative concession speech i ever heard. she concedes the election. gets that done so fast and goes on, here is who i will continue to fight against and it's donald trump, who she technically wasn't running against.

and her vow to fight against donald trump includes invoking abraham lincoln. includes invoking general grant, the strongest vow she could possibly made which means we now do have a genuine leader of the anti-trump movement in the republican party. >> giving them a home. >> there really hasn't been that person who was totally free. now she'll be free of the job of being a member of congress. so she's totally free to be out there. whether it's as a presidential candidate or not, as the leader. she'll be on all the shows that want that leading spokesperson in the republican world against donald trump who is still a republican. you know, we have plenty here, stewart stevens and others abandoned the party, who were strong republicans. but she's fighting for the survival of the republican party without a donald trump. >> yeah. i guess the question is the battle -- who are her foot soldiers in that battle? certainly never trumpers, certainly some democrats.

>> they would fit in a very small van at this point. >> the question is can she pull some republicans over. i wonder as a creature of capitol hill, does her departure from congress make kevin mccarthy's life easier or harder? because i think the conventional wisdom would be kevin mccarthy is probably saying to liz cheney, don't let the door hit you on the way out. at the same time, i'm sure that people in kevin mccarthy's caucus, much more radical than he is in terms of the support for trump and who remember kevin mccarthy's statements in the days after january 6th saying this is donald trump's fault. and as much as kevin mccarthy may do the work of trying to convince republicans and hard core trumpists that he's one of them, the fact of the matter is, his previous record does not show him to be. and i wonder if the ouster of cheney increases the fervor to really purge the party of anybody who might be seen as somehow even tangentially in the deepest recesses of their mind a

rhino. >> it was a successful purge. kevin mccarthy began by getting her out of the leadership in the house, getting her off his team. then donald trump said in effect let's get her out of congress completely. so that purge has worked. kevin mccarthy is, as far as we can tell, the most simple-minded leader of a house party in my life time that we have ever seen because he doesn't care at all about having a range of opinion within his party in the house. which is always important in the following way. when the people on the right side of your party are saying we need to do this, we need to do this, kevin mccarthy needs to be able to say to them, we can't do it. we can't get those new york republican. there's a faction we can't get. >> cautionary word. >> therefore it tames the wild impulses, you know, of house party. so each party has always had that. nancy pelosi has always been able to say, listen, i would love to. i'm a san francisco liberal, but

we won't be able to get, right? so let's try to put it here instead of there. mccarthy seems to want no moderating voices whatsoever in the party. he wants to simply take trumpism as if it's the catholic catechism i grew up with and read it word for word and wants no one missing a word of it. >> and strategically, that could be deeply problematic for him. he could be speaker of the house and then -- the flashbacks to john boehner and the impossibility of governing a caucus, especially a radicalized caucus getting anything done. he hasn't learned anything, it seems. let me just get you quickly on sarah palin. lawrence, is this a day for republicans of yesteryear to wear black arm bands they look at potentially the ascension of palin and departure of cheney. >> i'm so glad you had a guest from alaska to remind me at least, she's being hit with the

fact that she's a quitter. she quit the governorship, which i forgot because so many insane things happened in our followup since then. that was supposed to be the most insane thing for the next 20 years. but then came donald trump. and so, you know, this governor who simply quit the middle of the job is now saying, you know what, give me a two-year term as a member of the house. >> i can make it across that finish line. >> maybe i won't quit that because it's only two years. >> quitters versus losers, don't want to be either one in today's republican party. lawrence o'donnell, thank you for staying up. >> honor. >> my friend, let's do many more of these. in just a minute, we'll be joined by one of the very few people can relate to what cheney is going through. adam kinzinger, the only other republican on the house january 6th committee. we have a lot to ask him tonight. we have a lot to ask him tonight.

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donald trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office, to ignore the on going violence against law enforcement. to threaten our constitutional order. there is no way to excuse that behavior. it was indefensible. >> president trump urged others to bring his big lie to life.

he was willing to sacrifice our republic to prolong his presidency. i can imagine no more dishonorable act by a president. >> both liz cheney and adam kinzinger launched their careers in congress as republican party darlings with bright futures. and now, they both sit on the january 6th committee, investigating trump and shiing a light on his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. they both also voted to impeach the former president in january 2021 for his role in the january 6th attack. only eight other house republicans joined them, the rest of the party coalesced around donald trump. for all those reasons, the republican national committee formally censured cheney and kinzinger earlier this year. tonight, both of them will be out of congress by the end of this year. in october of last year, congressman kinzinger announce head would not seek re-election for his seat in illinois. tonight, after an uphill primary

battle to keep her congress seat in wyoming, she conceded with 62% of the vote in. she had already lost too much ground to her challenger, the trump-backed cheney critic, hagueman. she has more than 63% of the current vote total. cheney conceded with less than 33%. it is another rough primary night for republicans who have stood up to donald trump. and there is one person in american politics who knows and understands what it is like to be in liz cheney's position. that is congressman adam kinzinger from illinois, fellow member of the january 6th committee. i spoke to him earlier tonight about how his friend and his colleague was approaching this day and this race. take a listen. >> thank you so much for being here tonight. and i sort of would begin by saying i wish we were meeting under better circumstances, given where the polls have been trending in terms of cheney's

fate. i would ask you as one of the few people that's been going through this with her from inside the same party, what has it been like being on the committee with liz cheney? has there been comradery or gal low's humor? what has that relationship been like for the two of you? >> yeah, look, it's been pretty amazing. i mean, this committee just outside of just liz and i, this is like probably never happened in history. and it likely will never happen again. you have a committee that is focussed on getting the truth, getting the answers, getting done what needs to be done. we thank kevin mccarthy for pulling his members. it's made it a lot easier for us to get to the truth. liz, look, i feel the same way, is if i went back 20 months and made the decision about am i going to impeach donald trump, i would have done it in a heart beat. liz feels the same way. it's like, what is it for a man to gain the world but lose his soul? and i think as we've gotten into this committee, you know, liz

and i get along really well. my respect for her was huge, by the way, prior to even all this. and it's grown immensely. she's very determined, very dogged and she will chase donald trump to the gates of hell for sure. >> have you talked to her about her candidacy? have you talked to her in advance of election night tonight? >> yeah. i've kind of let her be for the last 12 hours or so or 24 hours. i think she obviously recognizes this is an uphill challenge. i think she made the decision that she's going to go down firing. and you know, a miracle could obviously happen tonight, but even if it's a little closer than what people expected, you know, but the bottom line is, i think this is sending a very strong message that this isn't your dad's republican party anymore. this isn't a party that's committed to truth. this is a party that's committed to conspiracy, marking your guest that said something about people in congress now don't really believe it. i don't think they do believe the big lie and the conspiracies. what i worry about is the next generation of people that have

just been elected. they'll be here next year. they do believe these conspiracies. that's very frightening. >> you've been pretty explicit about the sort of moral wrestling that you've had to deal with. the personal, anguish you've been in coming out against trump. i want to quote from an interview you did with the washington post. you said, you talked about the fact that in 2016 you didn't vote for trump. and then in 2020 you did, which is not the normal pattern for people in your position, right? and you talked about that vote pretty honestly. you said, i decided to vote for him in 2020. that way i can say with a straight face i voted for him. i know he won't win but i can say i did it so i have credit with the base. but you told the "post" you felt dirty casting that ballot in 2020. it is not something i can square away in my soul fully. do you think other members of congress are facing the same

internal anguish when they make these calls? >> how can you not? i mean, look, i think it's important to be open and honest about that. it was a cowardice vote for me. there's a lot of coward disvotes taken in the house. besides just a few of my colleagues, there are so many that i know have stuffed down that kind of little bird on your shoulder, the little angel that's whispering, you're really destroying this country with these votes and who you're supporting. they tried to justify it by saying if i don't run against, somebody crazier will come. what's happened people like kevin mccarthy, kevin mccarthy bears 90% of the weight of donald trump's return. he is a failed leader who has absolutely no -- nothing more than his own power in his mind. he resurrected donald trump. i got to tell you, if he's ever around a mirror, i can't imagine that's easy to look at him unless he's just that cold and calculated. >> but you were an ally -- kevin

mccarthy was an ally of yours when he came into office. you were one of his proteges. did you not see that then that he was naked after power or do you think something changed? >> well, i guess in hindsight you can see that. you know, i knew he was a very good politician, and he is. he just goes with the wind. he goes where it's going to take him to higher power. he knows everybody's name. he knows something about you. and i knew that there was a lot of politicianiva about that. at the time we didn't have donald trump. when he came and you start seeing people, not just about differences of opinion. we need differences of opinions in this country. but it's about swallowing authoritarian moves, destroying the constitution and changing how we respect government, and i saw him start working on behalf of trump for that and not lead. i mean, liz cheney and i can speak out against donald trump and we're going to keep doing this.

kevin mccarthy is the one that people would listen to. he's a leader. he's the cowardice to do it. people need to recognize that. >> there are people who legitimately believe, you leaving the party to hold trump accountable is a moral abomination. some of those people are in your own family. you shared a letter right after you called for trump to be removed from office under the 25th amendment, 11 members of your family sent you this letter, i'll just quote some choice lines. adam, oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to god. we were once so proud of your accomplishments. instead, you go against your christian principles and join the devil's army. the democrats and the fake news media. adam, they are not going to like this appearance this evening on msnbc. you know what happened with kevin mccarthy, right? that's a fairly a, b, c, i can be the next speaker of the house, i'm kevin mccarthy, i'll stay in power.

what about members of your own family, i ask that because i think they're representative of a lot of republicans in the country who don't hold elected office and are enthralled to donald trump and are voting against liz cheney who otherwise is everything you could want from a conservative republican? >> yeah. i think it's an important thing to talk about. first off, i have come to believe over the last year that people, more than even fearing death, were such a tribalistic people they fear being kicked out of their tribe. so you accept anything because now republicanism or conservatism or trumpism becomes your identity. you're going to stay. my family, look, they're my dad's cousins. as a christian myself, the pastors, many pastors in this country are failing their congregation, not even just by pushing kind of trumpism from the pulpit, but even refusing to talk about how bad it is, how corrosive it. you have people today that

literally in their heart they may not say it but they equate donald trump with the person of jesus christ. and to them, if you even come out against this amazing man, donald trump, which, i mean, obviously quite flawed, you are coming out against jesus, against their christian values. and when you go after their religion, that violates the depth of who they are. i've been kicked out of my tribe. that's okay. >> and you seem okay with it. you are doing it with your head held high. i guess just close us out by asking you about tonight we may see the departure of liz cheney for all intents and purposes from congress. sarah palin is in a primary in alaska that may very well make it to congress as the lone congressperson from alaska. may, being the operative word there. donald trump is suggesting he may run again in 2024. what do you think the road ahead is? you won't be in congress, but you know what's going on with

the gop. what happens now? >> well, i like a lot of people feel politically homeless. you know, this obviously is nothing near the party i joined. i have a movement that's country first. country 1 st.com. we played against madison cawthorn, played in michigan and some other places. what we're trying to do is to say to democrats that live in a district that you know is going to go republican, one of those that's not competitive, hey, in certain areas consider taking out a republican ballot and voting against these crazies. so i personally am going to be focussed on that. and i love calling out the garbage that is being done to abuse people. the abusive emails that say, seven times match or just give me 10 dollars or donald trump knows you haven't given this quarter. it's all lies. and it's abusing people, many of which are seniors and on a fixed income. i'm excited to go out and continue to fight that battle because somebody has to. people are being just abused and obviously the republicans have become a cult.

i'll try to pull people from that cult if i can. >> adam kinzinger, you seem ready for the fight. member of the january 6th committee, best of luck with all of your efforts. thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. congratulations. still ahead here tonight, new details in the search at mar-a-lago. a judge sets a hearing to decide whether we can see the reasoning behind the doj's search of trump's country club home. next, president biden has fun with his former boss on twitter. the bfd thatry talking about is the brand new law that biden signed today, the biggest investment in fighting climate change this country has ever made. we will be right back. ♪♪ will be right back. ♪ ah, i can't. ah, my toes! ah, how much further? turns out, it is hard walking a mile in someone else's shoes. and it turns out the general is a quality insurance company that's been saving people money for nearly 60 years.

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♪♪ today president biden signed the inflation reduction act into law, despite the colossal understatement of a name, the bill is the largest climate investment in u.s. history. it lowers healthcare costs for millions of americans. it makes sure that big corporations pay their fair share in taxes. and the whole thing will not only reduce the deficit, but yes, it will fight inflation, too. so the name isn't completely off base, but you understand what i mean. democrats and the biden administration have been hammering home those messages since this agreement was reached. as they should. but president biden didn't just brag about what this bill will do today, he also used as a very

real example of why elections matter. >> let's be clear, in this historic moment, democrats sided with the american people and every single republican in the congress sided with the special interests in this vote. every single republican in congress voted against lowering prescription drug prices, against loring healthcare costs. against a fairer tax system. every single republican voted against tackling the climate crisis, against lowering our energy costs, against creating good-paying jobs. my fellow americans, that's the choice we face. >> with less than 90 days until the midterms, message here is pretty clear, if you want more progressive stuff done to help people and the planet, then help elect more democrats. and that is what brings me to some other very good news tonight. some of the key obstacles democrats are facing this november are threats to voting

itself, whether the tidal wave of voter suppression laws the harassment of election officials or the increasing extremism of the conspiracy theorists who believe 2020 election was stolen, it is getting really hard to just vote in lots of places across the country. today, the nba, the national basketball association, announced new plan to make voting easier. yes, easier. the nba effectively made election day a league holiday. no basketball games will be played on election day. no basketball games. and on top of that, the night before election day, every single nba team will have a game and the teams will use that game as an opportunity to encourage fans to get out and vote. it's almost like a high school pep rally but with national implications. this was atlanta state farm arena in 2020 where the atlanta hawks play. more than 40,000 people cast their ballots there that year. biden won georgia, if you remember, by fewer than 12,000

votes. twice as many people voted at the bull's stadium, united center, than any other polling place in the city of chicago. 2020, total of 23 teams made their aanas posted ballot dropoffs and voter registration. nearly 300,000 americans voted in nba team arenas in 2020 which to put it in perspective, is more people than registered voters in the entire state of wyoming. when an entertainment or sports group does something political, it is often more window dressing or brand management than substance. but this is different. elections matter. facilitating elections matters. getting out the vote matters. and for a change, man, it is great to have some good news to report. ♪♪ rt ♪ when hurting feet make you want to stop, it's dr. scholl's time. our custom fit orthotics use foot mapping technology

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♪♪ it has been eight days since the fbi searched former president trump's palm beach home. and just four days since a federal judge released the search warrant revealing the fbi had taken 11 sets of classified documents from mar-a-lago, several top secret sets of documents. in the days since, merrick garland deliberated for weeks whether or not to approve the application for the search

warrant of trump's home. that is how sensitive it was. amidst all of this, there is one important element we have not gotten a lot of information on. we have not gotten access to the underlying sworn affidavit by an fbi agent that outlines why there was probable cause to think evidence of federal crimes would be found at mar-a-lago. that affidavit was essentially the basis for the search warrant. the justice department said releasing that affidavit to the public would, quote, auz significant and irreparable damage to this on going criminal investigation because the investigation involves highly classified materials. but despite that, today a federal judge set a hearing to decide whether or not to unseal the affidavit. that is scheduled for this thursday. as we wait to hear what happens on that front, i do want to bring up one point that seems potentially underexplored in the analysis of the search warrant materials. one of the documents fbi agents uncovered and took with them from mar-a-lago was listed as a, quote, executive grant of

clemency regarding roger jason stone jr. you may remember that trump granted not one but two executive grants of clemency for his old friend and adviser roger stone. so there could be a totally innocent and truly boring explanation here. maybe there was just an extra copy of that grant of clemency lying around and that extra copy just happened to be on top of or next to the classified documents that the fbi picked up. but maybe not. and maybe there is more to it. last week the day after the fbi executed a search warrant at trump's florida home, robert costa of cbs news reported that, quote, some january 6th committee members have been investigating quietly the trail of trump's documents for months about pardons. and are probing whether any private pardon papers exist. and if so, if they're held by trump/aides. we have no idea what that roger stone clemency document could be, the one that fbi took from mar-a-lago, but it could have been a private pardon, a pardon

trump granted secretly without the justice department or virtually anyone else knowing? there's no way to tell right now. there's no way. but if this reporting is correct, the january 6th committee is investigating whether or not private pardon papers exist, well now then you have my attention. and i have just the person to ask right here about this. my next guest has quite the resume, she spent 18 years as a federal prosecutor in birmingham, alabama, before becoming a u.s. attorney. in twooip, one of the first five u.s. attorneys -- there she is -- to be nominated by barack obama when he took office. the first female u.s. attorney he named and was then unanimously confirmed by the senate. no small feat. joyce vance spent nearly the entirety of barack obama's two terms as president, almost eight years, as the u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama. that's why she's here among others. joyce vance, it is so great to have you here. thank you for joining me, joyce. >> good to see you, alex. >> so i want to explore this

private pardon papers scenario, right? the fact that this roger stone clemency document was taken when the fbi seized papers from mar-a-lago, normally pardons go through the doj's i believe office of the pardon, right? >> the pardon attorney, right, who routinely handles all pardons. >> is it possible that trump has a stash of private pardon papers that might intersect with some of the things he did around january 6th? >> my temptation is to tell you absolutely not. it's impossible. but this is trump that we're talking about, right? he didn't do things like anyone else. the reason you have a pardon attorney is so there's an official record of a president granting pardons while he is in office. could trump have done these privately? i suppose he could have. but there's one limitation. even trump would have to create some form of a record that that pardon was issued while he was in office.

right? he doesn't today at mar-a-lago have the power to pardon anyone. >> despite what he might say, i think one of the reasons this is interesting is because of all the other rhetoric that's coming out of trumpland, vis-a-vis these documents at mar-a-lago, right? we know that trump is the person that's saying he had sort of unilateral capabilities to declassify information and that all of the things he took with him to mar-a-lago were things that he had declassified. effectively, i'll read the statement, president trump in order to prepare for work the next day often took documents, including classified documents, to the residence. he had a standing order, standing order, that documents removed from the oval office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them. boom, i can declassify something by virtue of the fact that i'm donald trump. someone who thinks he has that power to just boom declassify things, could also maybe think he has the power to issue pardons willy nilly without having to go through the

appropriate channels. >> it's not beyond belief. i got stuck on the part that you read at the part where he was saying to prepare for work the following morning. it just defied belief. but i think you're right. this is someone who never constrained by normal, smooth operations in the white house, which depended upon creating a record because we're a rule of law country. and we keep records. and record these sort of items, whether it's classification of important national security documents or reflecting pardons granted by a president. >> when we talk about the documents in and around the mar-a-lago, i will call it scandal, but investigation, seizure, there's a lot of interest in this affidavit from the fbi agent to explain why they were going down there. a judge is going to have a hearing on that on thursday. what is your expectation from that? and if the affidavit isn't released, should we infer anything from that about the seriousness of this investigation? >> well, the affidavit is always the juicy part of the search

warrant. everything else is filling out papers that to some extent are boilerplate. but in the affidavit, as you laid out, the agent collects all of the information that led the government to believe there's a crime that merits investigation. so, you and i and everybody else out there who is listening wants to read that. but doj's interest is in keeping all of that secret. they lay it out in this motion that you began to read from. and here is the problem, from where i sat as a prosecutor, if someone could read my agent's affidavit, they would have a road map for where i was going next in the investigation. and there are real problems, particularly when you have a situation where witnesses could be intimidated, future witnesses might not come forward, right? this is a real sort of a risk here. some sorts of information that are contained in affidavits can't be released. anything that's obtained using the grand jury, legally has to remain private prior to charges being brought. and then because of the nature

of this case, there's the entire specter of classified information being included in the affidavit. i would be stunned if the judge ruled that this warrant -- that this affidavit should be unsealed and released to the public. >> i mean, let's be clear, merrick garland, according to our reporting wrestled with this decision to raid mar-a-lago residence for weeks. the fact that we are admitting it's an on going criminal investigation, these are all measurable, tangible, signals that this is pretty serious. >> i think that's right. so i have to push back a little bit on the characterization of it as a raid because this is a search warrant that a federal judge authorized based on probable cause, which i know you know. >> we will be careful with our language on this. >> but i think the second part of what you said is something that hasn't been said enough and it's very important. the whole country has been waiting to see what merrick garland is doing. this week merrick garland told us that he has a criminal

investigation. he had the authority from that judge to go in and seize the office at mar-a-lago called 45. >> merrick garland, nation turns its lonely eyes to you. joyce vance, thank you for being here tonight. i sincerely appreciate it. we'll be right back. i sincerely appreciate it. we'll be right back. thing you can do. it eliminates painful fingersticks, helps lower a1c, and it's covered by medicare. before dexcom g6, i was frustrated. all of that finger-pricking and all of that pain, my a1c was still stuck. my diabetes was out of control. i was tired. (female announcer) dexcom g6 sends your glucose numbers to your phone or receiver without painful fingersticks. the arrow shows the direction your glucose is heading: up, down, or steady, so you can make better decisions about food and activity in the moment. after using dexcom g6, my a1c has never been lower. i lead line dancing three times a week, i exercise, and i'm just living a great life now. it's so easy to use. dexcom g6 has given me confidence and control

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♪♪ before we go, i just want to thank my talent and esteemed colleagues all the work they have done since we built this show from the very bottom up.

they have done incredible work holding down this hour ahead of our launch. and for that, i am incredibly and forever grateful. thank you, guys. and a final note, please don't forget to set your dvrs for alex wagner tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. two years ago i won this primary with 73% of the vote. i could easily have done the same again. the path was clear. but it would have required that i go along with president trump's lie about the 2020 election. it would have required that i enable his on going efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. that was a path i could not and would not take. >> another loss for republicans who refuse to go along with donald trump's big lie. wyoming congress