♪♪ good day. this is "andrea mitchell reports" in washington as a republican political dynasty is ending in wyoming, making way for liz cheney's next political chapter in her struggle with donald trump for the soul of the republican party. the january 6th committee vice chair conceding her primary after a landslide defeat to the trump-backed candidate, distinguishing herself from the former president by conceding. >> no house seat, no office in

this land is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect. our republic relies upon the good will of all candidates for office to accept honorably the outcome of elections. this primary election is over. but now the real work begins. >> this morning on "today" with savannah guthrie, she was pressed on whether her future includes seeking the nation's highest office. >> let's just be straight about it. are you considering running for president yourself? >> i will be doing whatever it takes to keep donald trump out of the oval office. >> you didn't say yes or no. that's fine if you are thinking about it. are you thinking about it? are you thinking about running for president? >> that's a decision that i'm going to make in the coming months, savannah. >> mr. trump celebrating cheney's defeat on his social media platform overnight.

his political and personal future remain clouded by legal trouble on all fronts, including the criminal investigation and the search of his florida home with a court hearing tomorrow on his demands, along with some members of the news media, including nbc, to unseal the affidavit that justified the search. we will have a live report from georgia where former trump personal attorney rudy giuliani is being questioned about his involvement in the scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential elections in georgia. . first the ousting of liz cheney, punished for standing up to donald trump and refusing to go along with the big lie. earlier on "today," cheney issued this warning about election deniers. >> i don't think that anybody in any political party should support election deniers. it's too dangerous to elect somebody as governor who will refuse to certify votes unless

it meets their own political preference, to elect people as secretaries of state who will refuse to count votes, count legitimate votes, to elect members of congress who refuse to accept the outcome of the last election. i think that is a red line. i don't think anybody should be supporting those people. >> joining me now from wyoming, nbc news senior politics reporter jonathan alyn, mark murray, phil rucker. welcome to all. jonathan, in wyoming, cheney vowing to ensure donald trump never gets to white house again, never gets near the oval office again. there's some news about her potential bid for the presidency. >> savannah guthrie on "today" eliciting from liz cheney that she is thinking about running

for president. we know that she plans to convert her substantial war chest from this campaign -- she had several million dollars left over, convert that into a new political action committee called the great task. i think more broadly, what we hear from liz cheney in the last 24 hours is a real commitment to one goal. that's stopping donald trump from becoming president again. she's no longer going to be the representative perfect wyoming. i think she does represent the views of a lot of democrats, independents and republicans about the state of our current republic and what needs to be done to strength it. as brendan buck knows, she was the republican communications chief in the house, the chair of the conference, somebody who was forceful and capable of communicating as people had seen with these january 6 hearings. i'm not sure who you want as your enemy out there taking aim at you. >> brendan, let's talk about it. you know liz cheney so well. is she doing the right thing in

response to getting punished by republicans by taking on trump and certainly dangling the possibility of running against him? >> obviously, what's so remarkable is she knew she was throwing away her seat. that was the cost of doing business. i think it's incredibly commendable to see somebody actually risk their own political life for a greater cause. where do we go from here? we are talking about the future. the house is done. the question is, what can she do to actually hurt donald trump and not help him? i think there's a real question of whether running for president is going to be helpful. putting her on the ballot will be helpful. there's no chance she's going to win a primary. she knows that. liz cheney is not delusional. i like her because she's not delusional. she's fighting against the solutional people. does she run as an independent? it's unclear whether that is going to siphon away votes from

donald trump or joe biden. if you are a republican who is fed up with donald trump, you just can't support him, it might be convenient to vote for liz cheney instead of joe biden. they have to figure out what's the most useful. she's going to be running a campaign against donald trump. we know that. the question is whether she is actually on the ballot. she has no sense that she's going to become president. it's all about stopping him. i think that's really commendable. >> here is more from liz cheney last night speaking about president lincoln in her concession speech. >> the great and original champion of our party, abraham lincoln, was defeated in elections for the senate and the house before he won the most important election of all. lincoln ultimately prevailed. he saved our union. he defined our obligation as americans for all of history. >> mark, we know that liz cheney

moved her campaign cache. >> i agree with jonathan and brendan. liz cheney made two things very clear. she wants a future outside of this -- outside of her house defeat yesterday in the primary. also, she wants to be a thorn in donald trump's side. let me walk you through what a leadership pac does and doesn't do. it allows you to raise money, give olympian to other political candidates. it helps you pay for a lot of travel you would make politically. it doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to run for president. in fact, you can't take that money and transfer it to a presidential account. it does -- this leadership pac lets us know she wants a future and she's going to barnstorm the country and use the money from that to be able to have a voice. >> phil, how does donald trump react to this? we have seen the fierce response

overnight. how does the rest of the party, the trump followers and others, mike pence, ron desantis, how do they respond to liz cheney? what she said as well, which is notable last night -- well, this morning she said in answer to savannah is people should not vote for any election die nigher, whether a republican candidate or a secretary of state or governor or president of the united states. >> yeah. clearly, former president trump was pleased by cheney's loss. in particular, by how big her loss was, by the margin of defeat. he was very personally invested in the outcome of this race in wyoming. he had been out there a few weeks ago to campaign for cheney's opponent, et cetera. he now has cheney as the leader of the opposition within the republican party for him. this solidifies her role in that space. with this new leadership pac, she's going to travel the country making the political case outside of wyoming.

but indeed across the states for republicans about trump, about election denialism, about the law and what she believes is right and wrong. that could be, over the long term, troubling or problematic for trump and for the many republican leaders, especially kevin mccarthy, who remain completely sworn to trump. >> she really went after kevin mccarthy as well this morning in the interview. it's really notable that she is taking this position even at the same time, phil, that she's the vice chair of the committee. does it in any way intersect with that work on the committee? does it undermine her effectiveness on the committee to be that politically outspoken? >> i don't think so. i mean, this is not a law enforcement investigation. it's not a criminal investigation. it's a congressional

investigation. the leaders of that investigation are political actors. the chairman is a democratic house member. the vice chair, as we know, is cheney. it's only natural for hem to be political in a campaign context. i don't think it necessarily becomes a conflict in any way or undercuts her credibility in leading this committee. >> victoria, there's a poll of hageman supporters showing 72% believe the election was rigged or fraudulent. 64% of republicans who won their primaries are election deniers. how do republicans like cheney reach those people and change their minds? >> let's take a historical step back that for liz cheney's last primary, she won by over 70%. it's fascinating to see how in such a short amount of time a big chunk of the republican

party has been persuaded. what we see with liz cheney, the establishment of her pac, the work she has been doing on the committee, is trying to figure out how you win back that base or at the least how do you peel off the votes on the fringes that you can put in a lane that is a non-trump gop lane? in thinking about the 2024 election, what does that lane look like? i agree with my colleagues here that the likelihood of cheney winning the white house is very slim. is it possible to de-trump trump in the 2024 gop primaries? that for me is what i'm looking at, what the fringes are of people who are like, this is too much for me. >> brendan, liz cheney, as i mentioned, took a swipe at kevin mccarthy today for going to mar-a-lago for the meeting, really helping to restore rehabilitate donald trump after january 6. let's watch.

>> kevin mccarthy made his decision a few weeks after january 6 knowing what he knew about donald trump's role in the assault on the capitol when he went to mar-a-lago and said we will welcome him back into the party. to me, that's indefensible. >> brendan, kevin mccarthy still -- if they win, the most likely favorite to become the speaker of the house. >> yeah. i think what mccarthy and cheney know is it is incompatible to have a beef with donald trump and be in leadership in the house. she made her decision that her leadership position, her house seat, weren't worth going along with it. kevin mccarthy is focused on two things. winning the majority, which i think is almost in hand. and then becoming speaker. he knows that he needs donald trump's support to get there. they have two different priorities. clearly, liz cheney is thinking about the future. she's got different things in mind.

awkward is the word to use for it. these are people who used to sit in very small leadership meetings together. now they are representing two very different directions that we're going in the party. i think liz cheney has a lot -- a big hill to climb, frankly. most of the party is probably aware kevin mccarthy is. i'm proud of her for fighting. >> alex wagner premiered last night with her new show. she had adam kinzinger, the other republican, the other anti-trump republican on the committee, who is retiring rather than fighting. listen to what he had to say about trump's die hard supporters, including members of his own family. >> you have people today that literally, i think in their heart they may not say it, but they equate donald trump with jesus christ. if you come out against this amazing man, donald trump --

quite flawed -- you are coming out against jesus, against their christian values. when you go after their religion, that violates the depth of who they are. i have been kicked out of my tribe. that's okay. >> a remarkable interview. phil, our country so divided that liz cheney in wyoming, which was cheney country, couldn't even have a public rally last night. she can't go out without facing threats. what does that say about us? >> it's a deeply divided country. these are scary and dangerous times. just think about the ways in which the fbi as an institution is under attack this last week, some of the threats we have seen against agents driven by trump's anger about the raid at mar-a-lago, in addition to the threats that have come against all sorts of people in public life, including elected members of congress, but also including

elections administrators in counties and states around the country. people trying to do their patriotic duty to keep this democracy functioning and the level of hate is remarkable. >> let me point out, we have to go, but on his social media, the former president has just shown that she's getting to him, she's getting under his skin. the fake news media is claiming liz cheney has a wonderful and bright political future. maybe they didn't notice she lost by nearly 40 points. she's too angry and sick to succeed in the future. who knows? who knows, indeed. she won by 73 points two years ago. the big lie has succeeded in wyoming so far. thanks to all of you. rudy awakening. president trump's former attorney rudy giuliani in front of a georgia special grand jury

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rudy giuliani is behind closed doors and under only in front of a fulton county special grand jury. he is a target of a criminal investigation after his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in 2020, including false allegations of a suitcase full of ballots to help biden win the state. totally not true. joining me now, blayne alexander, greg bluesteen and chuck rosenberg. what do we know about his strategy today? is he going to take the fifth, plead attorney/client privilege? or is he going to answer questions? >> reporter: you know what? we know little about what's happening inside of that room

right now. it's a secretive process. his attorney did give some indication of what we can expect going in there. he has made it clear that rudy giuliani doesn't plan to address any conversations that he had with former president trump. he plans to invoke attorney/client privilege there. what remains to be seen is to what extent he is going to answer any other questions or plead the fifth on that. i think it's important to kind of talk about the d.a.'s mindset in this. the grand jury proceedings are secret. we know he went in at 8:30 this morning or so. the proceedings were expected to get underway by 9:00. they are stretching into hour four. i want to talk about the d.a. she's the one who is at the helm of this investigation. when i spoke with her in an interview last month, she made it clear she's going to do a robust investigation. she said she wants to hear from everybody and anybody who may have had knowledge of the former

president's mindset, of his actions, anything regarding the 2020 elections here in georgia. she's not going to be hesitant to bring an indictment against anybody regardless of status, what office they may currently or formerly hold, she said, if the evidence proves that's necessary. >> chuck, can you explain to the viewers the difference between a special grand jury and a grand jury and what giuliani is facing today? >> sure. under georgia law, a special grand jury can be convened and panelled to hear testimony. unlike a regular grand jury -- this can get confusing. the special grand jury can't return an indictment. it can make a report. that report and other evidence can go before a regular grand jury, which can issue indictments. we don't have an analogous procedure in federal court. grand juries hear evidence and return indictments in federal

court. here it's bifurcated. his testimony is under oath. he could still be found guilty of perjury if he knowingly lies. he can invoke his fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. those rules pertain. this special grand jury will hear evidence from witnesses, collect evidence and one day write a report, which may be considered by a regular grand jury sitting in fulton county, georgia. >> chuck, if he were to take the fifth, can they then grant him immunity, some level of immunity and force his testimony? is there any way to compel him? >> that's a really interesting question. generally speaking, if a truthful answer to a question would tend to incriminate you, you can assert your fifth amendment privilege. the way around it for a prosecutor is to issue immunity and compel testimony. look, you have to be careful here. if he is really a target of the investigation and the district attorney said that he was, i

can't imagine that you would then want to immunize him to compel his testimony. if you are a target, you ought to expect to be prosecuted, not immunized. you do have that procedure to compel testimony from those who might have minor exposure. you grant them immunity. that wouldn't make sense with the target of an investigation. >> greg, giuliani and president trump for that matter, they don't have a lot of political cover now. the two republicans there, governor kemp and secretary of state raffensperger, they defeated trump-backed primary opponents. >> exactly. we have seen the power of donald trump's influence in georgia is not as strong as in wyoming and other states. donald trump's preferred candidates went down in blazing defeat, humiliated, essentially, by incumbents. at the same time, we are not hearing republicans rush to the defense of donald trump right

now, we're not hearing governor kemp talk about this investigation. they will mention if they are asked. instead, they would rather focus on inflation, the economy, the issues they think that georgia voters will hinge their election decisions on. >> do you think that this investigation is having an impact, pro or con, among the voters? >> i think it could energize voters who have made up their minds. just as we are not hearing top candidates in the republican side of the ticket, we are also not hearing stacey abrams or warnock. we are not hearing them talk about this investigation much either. it's above the fold news. but is it the top of the mind on the campaign trail? i will see senator warnock later today. i guarantee he will talk about efforts to fight inflation and not this. >> busy time in georgia. especially for you, greg. thank you very much.

chuck, stick with us. coming up, we will talk about the document debacle. details about who might be shedding light on the secret documents president trump was holding at mar-a-lago. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. c. new astepro allergy. no allergy spray is faster. with the speed of astepro, almost nothing can slow you down. because astepro starts working in 30 minutes, while other allergy sprays take hours. and astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid free allergy spray. now without a prescription. astepro and go. covid-19. some people get it, and some people can get it bad. and for those who do get it bad, it may be because they have a high-risk factor - such as heart disease, diabetes, being overweight, asthma, or smoking. even if symptoms feel mild,

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federal agents are reportedly learning a lot more about the sensitive classified information taken from mar-a-lago from some of those closest to president trump during the final months of husband presidency. "the new york times" citing three people report that former trump white house counsel pat cipollone and his former deputy were both interviewed by fbi agents in connection to the boxes of documents stored at mr. trump's florida home. joining me now, ken dilanian, douglas london, and former senior fbi official chuck rosenberg staying with us. thanks to chuck. ken, pat cipollone, pat philbin.

what do we know about whether they were interviewed and how they were interviewed. >> we haven't confirmed reporting but we have no reason to doubt it. what it suggests is the justice department is trying to learn more about how those documents got to mar-a-lago and what was the process in the final days of the white house as donald trump was moving his material out? we have a lot of reporting on that that suggests it was a chaotic process and that, by the way, for months and years before that, donald trump had a pen chance for grabbing and holding on to highly classified documents. john bolton told us it was common place. it was such a problem that they didn't want to bring in sensitive photos and things like that. it looks like what doj is trying to determine, was there any process around making sure the classified material got back to where it was supposed to be? apparently in some cases not.

it ended up in boxes that were transferred to mar-a-lago. >> chuck rosenberg, i want to read an except from the reporting in "the new york times" about the attempts to retrieve these documents. she writes in part -- chuck, what does that tell you? does that indicate his view of the documents and perhaps start building a case if they do end up building a case about his intent? >> it does, andrea. it's not his. it's ours. those documents belong to the united states of america. the president, while president, manages the intelligence community apparatus and gets to see the stuff and make decisions. but he is not president and it's not his anymore. i should add, mr. philbin and

mr. cipollone were given a difficult job in many ways. one way in which the difficulty of their job manifests itself was trying to be the liaison between the white house and the national archives as the trump presidency wound down. by the way, andrea, i worked with pat philbin. he is honest. he is truthful. he is brilliant. he was scrupulously careful with very sensitive documents that we were handling while we were together at the department of justice. i don't envy the position he was in. of course, he is going to testify. if a bank is robbed, you would interview the tellers. if you look into the mishandling of classified information, you talk to the people responsible for trying to handle it properly. >> that's such a great firsthand recounting to the character and practice of pat philbin.

your experience, helping to prepare the briefs for the president, from reporting from inside the cia just how casual was he about it? how did you alter the process to try to hold his attention and keep his interest? >> that's exactly it. as you know, intelligence briefings for the president have to range a wide array of complex issues. the key is getting the president's attention. you have to adopt a style that will secure the president's interest and have him focus on the matter. it was hard to do that with president trump, particularly without trying to compromise the integrity of the product itself. we found he responded very well to images, pictures, videos, that sort of thing. of course, the danger of if he gets too interested what he might want to do. we try to impart those things and had to use a catchy headline approach, which is not really orthodox for us, to get him to focus without him wanting to pull products shgz such as

images, which we would try to include so it was not something he could take are to large poster size documents which are hard to put in your pocket. >> did the briefers tell you he wanted to keep some paper when he did do handouts for him? cia would resist. >> you got feedback from the briefers. we try to provide them with anticipated questions, which sometimes included, can i have this? often enough, it was really keeping him on target. there was one particular briefing we had on a sensitive terrorism issue where the president would ride off on a tangent and talk about ordering food or milk shakmilkshakes in meeting. they would leverage the conversation to move him off of that. promised the president we would follow up with him and address his questions. >> did you have any personal experience with the blow back from some of the known instances

where, for instance, he put on social media that photo, the satellite photo of the iran excavation site after an attack? >> we had sensitive operations that we briefed the president on in terms of what our strategy was and some of the mechanics, particularly there was a great interest the president had in bin laden's son who was not a focus of our strategy, because he made a lot of noise, but he wasn't planning operations. the president really wanted to make a point about him and did so in some of his public speeches and remarks. we would try to see what he was going to do. but the president often spoke off the cuff. there were similar problems with iran and issues from iran where the president obviously had an agenda to vilify iran and with some cause. but some of his comments to support his vilification would tread closely to information we knew that we didn't want the

iranians to realize we had access to. >> how concerned were you after the president invited the russian ambassador and foreign minister into the oval office? >> it was troubling for the organization. he had foreign minister lavrov in his office. he made some comments about a very sensitive activity in iraq dealing with terrorism, with isis, that involved a foreign partner that he provided some exposure to. likewise, he discussed russian interference, which was the cause of his firing mr. comey, very proud of it as he was, he mentioned remarks that were suggested back to the source, and that source had to be taken out to protect his safety. >> astonishing. ken, i want to play something that former vice president mike pence said today in new

hampshire about cooperating with the january 6 investigation. let's watch. >> if they were to call you, the committee, to come and testify, would you be agreeable? >> if there was an invitation to participate, i would consider it. any invitation directed to me, i would have to reflect on the unique role i was serving in as vice president. >> that's the most we have heard from the vice president personally. we know about other people on his staff who have testified. he would consider it. he didn't say he wouldn't. >> exactly. he didn't rule it out. parts we didn't play. he hedged considerably and talked about the constitutional issues of having the vice president come to testify. if he ever does agree to testify, he could be an extremely powerful witness about so many aspects of this from being in the capitol, trying to get the national guard to come while donald trump was doing nothing, to the efforts to overturn the election and

pressure him and to take action on january 6. it would be a remarkable moment for this investigation. >> including what he said and heard back from the secret service about wanting to move him out and why he didn't want to leave the capitol. >> absolutely. he said to his driver, i know you, but i don't know what the motives of the other people are. >> he was concerned about not finishing the count that day and being somehow taken to camp david. according to other witnesses. we want to hear it from you, mike pence. ken, douglas, chuck, thanks to all. the last frontier. a trump target, sarah palin, and a democrat all look like they will come out on top. steve kornacki is here next to explain it all. the wild ride in alaska politics. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ts" c ♪ ♪

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prominent women politicians appeared to have survived the primary races last night. lisa murkowski and her opponent will both advance to the general election. murkowski coming in slightly ahead in the race. sarah palin coming in behind democrat mary pertola in the house race. joining me now, steve kornacki at the big board. how do the votes break down in that rank choice system? >> a lot of suspense in both races. we could pick it up with sarah palin's comeback attempt here. this is for the at-large congressional seat in alaska. special election to make this even more confusing. there's also yesterday a primary for the full two-year term that palin and these other candidates are all a part of as well. we will start with the special election right here. still have the votes being tabulated. this is a special election, as you say, being done by ranked choice voting.

three candidates on the ballot. folks went to the polls yesterday. who is your first choice, second choice? you mark up your ballot like that. the key here is there were two republicans, palin and begicl and one democrat on the ballot. it looks like is happening -- some votes to be counted. it looks like peltola is on course to finish first in the initial round of tab ooh lags here. palin does have an advantage of over 5,000 votes over begich. we haven't called this yet. palin looks in good position to hold on to second place. if that's what happens, if it finishes this way, then what would happen, two weeks from now, they will take all of the votes that went to the third place finisher, he will be ee welcome natured and all of those folks will take their ballots, who was their second choice on the ballot? it will be reallocated to palin or to peltola.

whoever leads after that will then win the special election to congress. what's interesting is, palin it looks will have to be playing catchup here. peltola with an advantage right now. palin very high negative numbers in alaska. it raises the question, while begich is a fellow republican, would there be voters who because they don't like sarah palin would not make her their second choice and would instead make peltola their second choice? there may actually be a path here, if it finishes peltola one and palin two, there may be a path for peltola to win the rank choice vote and the special election. this is a mail-in ballot are coming in for the next week or two. they will not do the rank choice tab ooh lags until the very end of the month or the start of next month. it looks like that's the dynamic that's setting up. a little suspense.

there's suspense in the senate. this will not be adjudicated until november. lisa murkowski running in first. her trump-backed opponent oning in second place. it's top four. what they do for the senate race is the top four finishers in this voting are going to advance to rank choice voting in november. what's so interesting i think is you look at murkowski and her opponent. that's 85% of the vote going to them. the democrat an after thought here. a lot of democrats have already made a decision in alaska that this is a race between these two. a lot of those democrats instead of voting for democratic candidates yesterday, went out and voted for lisa murkowski. there's going to be four candidates on the ballot in november in alaska. you can see this is setting up as a clear murkowski and tshibaka race.

it's democrats, independent voters in alaska who through the rank choice voting system will end up getting to decide that vote. if murkowski does finish in first place here and you do see democrats -- you see this democrat getting 6%, you see a path for murkowski potentially to survive despite trump's opposition in november. >> steve kornacki, could it be more complex? >> that's how alaska does it. >> we will keep following this for the weeks to come until we have a final answer. steve kornacki, thank you. one year later, sharp criticism from the top u.s. general in afghanistan about the decision to withdraw and the chaos that followed. stay with us. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. make you want to stop, it's dr. scholl's time. our custom fit orthotics use foot mapping technology to give you personalized support, for all-day pain relief. find your relief

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courtney kube spoke with the general, who's now retired and is sharply critical about the decision to withdraw. >> as we pulled out, we began to lose our capability to see. and we began to lose our ability to interact with our afghan partners to learn what they were seeing. so it began to degrade pretty significantly. now, as we got into the non-combatant evacuation operation, we put another emphasis on intelligence back into afghanistan for that limited period of time. by the time we left, our ability to see in afghanistan was at 2% or 3% of what our capability was before. it is very concerning. >> and courtney kube joins me now. terrific interview, courtney. 2 or 3% intelligence capability of what it was before. and so sharply critical of the decision to withdraw. does he say anything about the original decision of the trump administration the previous may in doha to negotiate with the

taliban and set the timetable? i mean, the white house pushback is that they would have been attacked by the taliban, our forces who were being relatively quiet, if they had not withdrawn. >> that's right. so he is very critical of ultimately the doha agreement. the fact that there was any kind of agreement that set a timetable for when the u.s. would withdraw. he also said that the taliban was not upholding their end of the doha agreement. despite that there was never any indication according to what he saw that the biden administration was interested in ever renegotiating. but he did talk about the possibility of a continuing presence. he believes that there could have been -- they could have maintained security for the afghan government and maintained the afghan military with about 2500 u.s. troops. and yes, there was the argument including by president biden that it would take tens of thousands because the taliban would attack back. but he believes that there would have been with the 2500 u.s. troops a & nato troops they would have been able to maintain that presence and keep open a

u.s. embassy which was very critical to the ambassador there, as you well know. but general mckenzie was also -- he was very critical of another part, something that he says to this day he wishes he could change. and that was getting americans out earlier. here's what he had to say about that. >> i wish we had begun to bring people out earlier. you always go back and you examine that. wish we had seen that coming. i wish we had done that different. there's all kinds of things that i would do differently. but i would tell you, i believe that what happened in august of last year occurred when we decided to leave completely in april of that year. and that's not a military decision. that's a political decision. >> and you've been pretty clear, you said that president biden heard out his military commanders on that decision who were opposed to it. were you aware of any military commanders or leaders who were in favor of a complete withdrawal? >> i am not, but i'm just speaking to you for myself right now, courtney. >> and of course the state department took a lot of

criticism for how long it took to get people out and the fact that they didn't get the translators out and others who'd helped the u.s. >> exactly. and that was something that was sort of a double-edged sword. general mckenzie said he wishes they'd gotten americans out earlier. but he acknowledges if they'd taken some of these afghans out who are literally still fighting the taliban it could have done nothing more than speed up the taliban's ability to take over the country. >> as you are covering all of this, it's a year after and so much to explore. thank you. and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." remember, follow us online on facebook and on twitter @mitchellreports. a special edition of "chris jansing reports" live from cheyenne, wyoming starts right after this. after this astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid free spray. while other allergy sprays take hours astepro starts working in 30 minutes. so you can... astepro and go. when moderate to severe ulcerative colitis persists... put it in check with rinvoq,

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hello. i'm chris jansing live in front of the historic state capitol in beautiful cheyenne, wyoming. and today a new era begins for this state as new questions are being raised for the country. with liz cheney's landslide defeat exposing the stark choices for republicans come november and the massive divide between those willing to follow donald trump and those who won't. cheney spoke about those choices last night. and even in the face of defeat it was hardly a typical concession. >> no office in this land is more important than the principles that we are all sworn