good day. this is "andrea mitchell reports" in new york today where the chief financial officer of the trump organization has been pleaded guilty to tax evasion at the family business and faces jail time while the florida judge who approved the search at mar-a-lago is about to hold a hearing on a request to release the secret affidavit justifying that search. florida magistrate judge rineheart will hear testimony.

trump has been calling for it to be released on social media. his lawyers have yet to take legal action on this. lawyers for news organizations, including nbc news, are petitions in court today for the affidavit to be made public. dr. fauci will be with me as cdc director dr. walensky announces a major overall at the cdc, acknowledging the agency failed to respond quickly enough to the pandemic over the last three years and did not serve the public. all this as the agency is scrambling to deal with monkeypox, a polio scare in new york and rolling out booster shots in the next couple weeks for omicron subvariants of covid. we begin in florida with nbc's cal perry, ken dilanian and former u.s. attorneys joyce vance and chuck rosenberg. cal, set the table for us. what do we know about this magistrate judge? who is going to argue before him

this afternoon? we understand the trump lawyers were not taking part. >> reporter: yes. the two parties that we are going to hear from are this group of media organizations, around a dozen, as you said nbc news is one of them. we will hear from the department of justice. we will likely not hear from donald trump's lawyers. we heard from him on social media, but it's not clear whether or not he will change his mind and what his lawyers think. we sort of know what we're going to hear from both parties. first on the media's behalf, we will hear from lawyers who argue this was, quote, as they say, historically significant. it was unprecedented. the public has an inherent interest in understanding what the method was, what was behind that decision to carry out that search warrant last monday. we know the department of justice is going to try to keep it sealed. they write in the filing this week that unsealing the affidavit could cause significant and irreparable damage to the criminal

investigation. they said it would serve as a road map to the government's investigation, providing details about its direction and likely course. as you said, the other issue here is witnesses, not just witnesses that have already been interviewed by the department of justice, but future witnesses. they write in this filing that there could be a chilling affect on future witnesses. it's for all of those reasons that doj will argue that this is kept sealed. if the judge were to decide that it would be made public, it's likely we would see a redacted version of this document, because so much is classified. the other thing going on today, i should say, is the local police department is confirming that there have been threats against the judge. they write, the palm beach guard police department is aware of the threats against the judge. we are working with federal law enforcement partners. it gives you an idea of the atmosphere down here. the judge is a former prosecutor. those are the facts. i will leave the legal analysis to our team. that's where things are. we expect that hearing to start in just under an hour.

>> ken dilanian, picking up on what cal said, one of the reasons there's threats is that people, supporters of donald trump, deliberately put out on social media the name of the judge, the fbi agents who conducted the search. so there was a real attempt on social media to target him. >> that's right, andrea. imagine this judge's mindset as he is hearing from the government today that putting out this affidavit would put other people in the government at risk, including potentially investigating agents or witnesses. it puts the judge in a very difficult position. i think it's interesting to note here that while the trump team has been proclaiming they are in favor of releasing this affidavit, they are not arguing that in court. they have not filed a motion. they are not expected to argue today in favor of making this public. we can all make our own judgments about why that would be. what i'm hoping to get out of this hearing is when the government argues, maybe a little more insight into where

this investigation is going and the scope of it when they explain why this document, which after all is the fbi justification for the search warrant to the judge, lays out everything the fbi presumably knows about this case, why this document the justice department thinks must remain sealed, why it would compromise their ongoing criminal investigation, that's what i will listen for today. >> chuck, with your experience working at the justice department and fbi, what do you think most likely outcome is today? we have learned a lot about the importance, from the filing the other night, where the justice department said that they did not want this to be released, we understood a little bit more about the importance of the fact that there is a criminal investigation. this was not just a case where they wanted to get their documents back. there are witnesses. there's an investigation going on. >> i think cal framed it perfectly. right? we expect the media organizations will argue that

the search was historically significant and the public has an interest in knowing what happened. that's true. that's right. but i think the justice department is more right. they have an ongoing criminal investigation and want to protect it and witnesses from harm. judges get paid to weigh these competing interests. my guess to your question is we're going to see nothing or very little. meaning that the judge will likely side with the justice department and keep the affidavit under seal, or if he unseals it, given the great public interest in its contents, i expect it would be heavily redacted. there is a preference in the law, when possible, because courts operate in a public space, to make information available to the public. that makes sense. but not here where there is a more compelling interest in keeping the affidavit sealed for now while the investigation is ongoing. >> joyce, all this happening in

florida and new york, there's the weisselberg case, and other problems for former president trump, including "the new york times" is reporting the january 6 congressional committee has subpoenaed trump white house documents. >> well, that's, i think, another blow for the former president. >> excuse me, the january 6 grand jury that has subpoenaed these documents from the national archives, i'm gathering. >> that's correct. the name that appears on that subpoena is the name thomas windham, the prosecutor who we understand is leading doj's investigation into events around january 6th and perhaps, we don't know for certain, the former president himself. but this is, i think, more bad news for trump. this notion that doj wants to obtain these documents, some of which it may already have, quite frankly, from the committee, suggests that it wants to get them through what would be the

normal and usual chain of custody. that's a legal mechanism that makes evidence available to offer in court. you have to prove who it came through and make sure you can authenticate it. it's not clear that's what's going on. the fact that doj is interested in importing this body of evidence into its working materials suggests that it continues to be very focused on the people most responsible for january 6. >> overnight, the former president is lashing out at "the washington post" for its reporting on his legal team, saying he was having trouble finding lawyers that wanted to work for him. joyce? >> yeah. if that's for me, i think it's unusual for a former president to have trouble finding legal

counsel. lawyers want to represent former presidents. that's prestigious work. the issues here are novel constitutional issues that are fascinating. you know, there's been some reporting that trump has picked up a former doj lawyer who i suspect chuck and i both know, who did work in organized crime. a good lawyer. by and large, he hasn't attracted to his team these sort of leading constitutional lawyers, former solicitor generals who you would expect to see handling these types of cases. again, not a good signal for the former president. >> finally, chuck, the absence of the trump lawyers there after making such a big deal about this, the former president as well on social media, they are clearly trying to really target the fbi and this entire procedure, something that former vice president pence called out in an appearance in new hampshire yesterday. one of the moments where he separated himself from what donald trump and his supporters have been doing.

there's got to be real concern within the fbi, within law enforcement, about the way this has evolved against the fbi. just in the one week -- over a week since we have had this search. >> the threats against the fbi and its agents and personnel, andrea, are disgusting and reckless and pathetic and sickening. if you had more time, i have more synonyms. >> i have the time. >> i have a source. ken made this point earlier. i think it's a good one. people can draw their own conclusions about why trump's legal team isn't arguing in court for the release of the documents that they say they want released. maybe it's because the law really here favors keeping the affidavit sealed, as the justice department prefers and because the media organizations are taking an opposite view, trump team is simply riding on their coattails, interesting to see

trump's interests align with nbc or "the washington post." maybe the trump team doesn't want a loss in court. they fear that they are likely to lose because of the way that the department of justice has articulated its concerns. either way, as a judge, you would expect the parties who have an interest in the outcome of the proceedings to show up and articulate their interests. they're not doing that. it's curious and it's odd. my larger concern remains, andrea, with the men and women of law enforcement, in this case the fbi, who have a dangerous job, and they don't need others targeting them simply for doing their job. it's absolutely pathetic and i would hope an adult would stand up and say that in no uncertain terms. >> ken dilanian, all of this has made -- has put so much pressure on merrick garland as well. he had been under intense political pressure from the

political left. now he is getting it from all sides as he ponders some critical decisions. at some point, if donald trump is part of the investigation, which is something that one could surmise, but certainly people close to him -- we see rudy giuliani more than six hours in georgia. he will have to make extraordinary decisions. >> enormous decisions. i know from talking to people at the justice, it's something he and other top officials have been thinking about for some time. the enormity of the prospect of indicting a former president, whether that's good for the country or bad for the country, what goes into the decision. it's hard not to think that this search of the former president's home has in some ways laid the groundwork, has sort of gotten the public used to the idea that there's a serious law enforcement effort targeted in

part at the former president here. he has not been charged, obviously. there was probable cause to believe a crime had been committed. evidence of the crime at his house. this is a gradual process. from the justice department's point of view, the public is seeing this happen. millions of people are mad about it. we have yet a lot to learn about the evidence in this investigation, who else, if anyone, might be charged, and the doj is going its way. by the way, the other factor here is, at what point do the rules kick in about not taking action close to an election? is that relevant here given donald trump is on the ballot? i have asked that question. i've been told it's a gray area. they are playing it by ear at the justice department. >> i was just going to ask you that as a follow-up. thank you, ken dilanian, joyce vance, chuck rosenberg, cal perry in florida. we will have all the breaking news when this hearing begins, expected about 1:00 eastern. public health reset. the cdc admitting to a botched

covid response. dr. fauci joining me next. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. rts" on msnbc. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

today the cdc is pledging to do better, admitting it botched its response to the covid pandemic, including confusing and shifting public health guidance and a slow release of critical data. that from cdc director dr. walensky after an internal review and concerns about the agent's ability to tackle monkeypox and the re-emergence of polio. >> not up to the task. we made public mistakes. we need to own them. >> joining me now is dr. fauci, chief medical advisor to president biden.

dr. fauci, thank you for being with us. >> good to be with you. thank you for having me. >> i want to ask you first about a sister agency, the cdc. i know you are loath to criticize other agencies, but they have been self-critical. dr. walensky, in an extraordinary statement, a scathing report that she herself commissioned, saying that from top to bottom, there are major changes. is the agency up to those kinds of changes? >> i believe so. i think they should be commended in the fact, particularly dr. walensky, realizing and recognizing the shortcomings that have been there for quite a long time, long ante dating dr. walensky's tenure. i think it was the stress and the challenge of a historic pandemic that brought some of those deficiencies into sharp relief. so i believe we should commend them for realizing that,

particularly dr. walensky. there are very, very good people at the cdc. there was an issue with the culture of how they approach their responsibility as a public health agency that i think has now been recognized. so i'm actually optimistic that given the fact that the problems have now been recognized, that there's a pathway to making a very good organization much better. >> you know, during the trump years, to be perfectly honest, a lot of us saw the short comings in the cdc, but we thought there was political interference. and there was in the press operations. we saw that between the white house and the cdc. that seems to have been a separate issue, that there was an underlying cultural, bureaucratic problem, correct? >> that's absolutely correct, andrea. it's a fact. it's a painful fact. the good news is that they

recognize it. you are not going to fix something unless you own it. as dr. walensky clearly stated, they made some mistakes. they have to own it. the only way to correct it is to realize that you have an issue, somewhat of a deep seeded dur cultural issue that they recognize and will collect. i'm optimistic they will be able to regroup and handle this. >> the cdc now is saying it doesn't have the authority to shift its funding to tackle public threats. that seems to require legislative action. if so -- >> right. >> in this climate of a divided house and senate and who knows what's going to happen next after the election, how important is it for them to get that authority? >> they listed, andrea, a number of authorities, transactional authorities that they would need

to be able to respond in a more fluid, expeditious manner when they get challenged with an outbreak. so i do hope that the congress is responsive to their needs. i would hope so. because it would be important for us not only for continuity of our response against the current challenges, but also the inevitability that we will have future pandemics. what they are asking for is quite reasonable. i hope that they get it. >> dr. fauci, let's talk about covid. we are expecting in a couple of weeks that this booster for the omicron subvariant is going to be available. first of all, is it in time? this subvariant just went viral a couple of months ago. by the time this booster is available, will there be another mutation that we have to worry about? >> well, we certainly still have a considerable problem, andrea, with ba.5.

the idea of in the next few weeks, as we get into the early part and middle part of september, to have an updated ba.5 variant booster available for people i think is a very good thing. even if there are changes. unless we get a completely different variant, which would be very unfortunate and probably unlikely that that would happen, but nonetheless still possible, if we get a variation of the ba.5, getting a ba.5 specific booster would likely cover it to a considerable degree. so i think it's a very positive step in the right direction to make an updated booster being as closely matched as we possibly can to what is circulating and what might be circulating in the fall. >> will there be enough to go around? will they be easily available at

drugstores? have we fixed the distribution problem? >> yeah. actually, from right from the beginning of the administration, we really didn't have much of a distribution problem. that was fixed pretty quickly. we have a problem of people wanting to get vaccinated, andrea, much more so than people who want to get vaccinated who don't have access to it. what we need to do is we need to get people to appreciate the importance of not only getting vaccinated, but by keeping their boosters up to date. because the data that show the difference in severity of disease between the unvaccinated and the unvaccinated and vaccinated with boost is dramatically different. that's what we need to do. it's not a question of accessibility. it's a question of getting people to be vaccinated with vaccines that are available. >> that's the message you have to get out.

there's a difference in the degree of illness. so many people did get covid because of the omicron subvariant, the ba.5. they said, i'm fully vaccinated, double boosted, how could i get it? then some people take paxlovid and get a bounceback as the president did. people began to feel, maybe the vaccines are not that important. you are pointing out, it's so important. >> absolutely. i mean, if you look at the difference in hospitalization and death between unvaccinated and vaccinated, the curves, even for people, andrea, not used to looking at these are so obvious that the deaths and hospitalizations look like this for unvaccinated and look like this for the vaccinated and boosted. the data are overwhelmingly clear. >> dr. fauci, let's talk about polio because when i grew up and the vaccine was coming out, this

was considered the absolute most important thing. my father had polio. we lived with that all our lives. he certainly did. how could polio be recurring in our country in 2022? how concerned are you? >> well, what we need to understand is that the polio that we saw in this individual in rockland county who had pair paralitic polio is that the original vaccine has in it multiple different types of the polio. one is a type two, which is a virus that when you vaccinate someone with a live attenuated vaccine, it can be excreted in

the feces and revert to a more pathogenic form. they likely got infected from someone who had a vaccine related polio. the vaccines that we have been giving in this country over the last several years has been not the live attenuated but the killed vaccine, which has no chance of getting transmitted as a vaccine related polio. the solution to the problem, andrea, is to get everybody who is not up to date on vaccinations, particularly children, to get them vaccinated, because the protection against polio of the salk vaccine is about 99%. you ask me if i'm worried about it. i'm only worried about it to the extent that people are not

vaccinating their children. there are some areas, particularly in rockland county, where only about 60% of the children have been vaccinated. in some areas in that county, as low as 37% of the children have been vaccinated. if you want to put a dead stop to polio in this country, then just get everybody vaccinated who needs to be vaccinated. it would be the end of it. >> monkeypox, now you have the manufacturer throughout the world objecting to the way the u.s. stretched the vaccine by stretching the doses and injecting it in different ways, subcutaneously. there is not enough vaccine to go around. is this another example of a bungled cdc response? >> it's not. it has nothing to do -- please don't blame the cdc for this. this is not a cdc bundled

response. what it is is that the demand, at least now, we will catch up with that, but the demand for the vaccine is greater than the supply, even though we are doing better. we have over 600,000 doses that have been distributed. another 400,000 that likely will be greatly expanded, because you now can get five times as many of the doses in a vile as you had before. i'm still not completely understanding why the company has concern over this. if you look at a very good study that was done by grantees of the nih, in 2015, showed that if you give intradermally of the vaccine at one-fifth the doze, it gives you an immune response to a full dose subcutaneously.

it's positive. it should not be looked upon as negative. it's a very effective way to expand the number of doses that we have. >> dr. fauci, as always, our thanks to you on so many subjects. thanks for being with us. >> good to be with you. thank you for having me. the guilty plea today. the trump organization's money man in court today in new york. what we know about this potential prison sentence and where he is going to be going and what it could mean for the former president. this is "andrea mitchell reports" is msnbc. a mitchell reports" is msnbc. 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.

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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, these factors can increase your risk of covid-19 turning severe. so, if you're at high risk and test positive - don't wait - ask your healthcare provider right away if an authorized oral treatment is right for you. former trump organization chief financial officer allen weisselberg pleaded guilty to all criminal charges against him, meaning he conspired with mr. trump's company to avoid paying taxes on $1.7 million worth of corporate perks. the court promised him a sentence of five months to be

served on rikers and five years probation. this means weisselberg will testify at a trial of the trump organization in october. he has agreed he will not testify against donald trump. joining me now is tom winter, nbc news investigative correspondent outside the courthouse. you were inside. tell us what happened. this is such an extraordinary moment. the guilty plea of the chief financial officer, the man who knew all the secrets going back decades at the trump organization. >> reporter: you said it. when you think back, the cfo of the trump organization, even before the former president ran for president, back in 2015, it would be a big deal. the fact of the matter is, this investigation took place during the course of trump's presidency. it involved an investigation where they were able -- the only one we know about that was able

to get the former president's tax returns and tax documents that were used to comprise those tax returns. this is an important marker in this case. ending with a guilty plea by weisselberg. the d.a.'s office is able to get him to testify against the trump organization who has a trial coming up in late october, a couple of weeks before the midterms. for weisselberg -- this was a key to his attorneys and to him, who had his birthday earlier this week, turning 75, the idea that he could remove the possibility of perhaps two, five years in jail, the maximum here would have been 15. doubtful he would have gotten that if convicted. it takes a lengthy jail term or prison term off the table for him. his attorney really underscored that point in a statement we can look at where he talks about the fact that this has been an ongoing saga for weisselberg,

something he had to deal with for a number of years. he is somebody we have shown on tv 1,000 times, pictured with the former president and now somebody who can get this behind him. his conditions -- the conditions of the five-month jail term are contingent on whether or not he truly testifies according to prosecutors and the judge in that upcoming trial in late october involving the trump organization and he pays back almost $2 million, $1.9 million plus that he owes the state of new york and the city of new york for taxes that he didn't pay on some of the off the books payments he received for loans, for cars, for an apartment, for a garage and other payments. that's the bottom line here. it's not a closed chapter on this investigation though. the manhattan district attorney's office putting out a statement saying they continue to investigate not just the trump organization, but the former president himself. >> to that point, isn't the trump organization donald trump

and his adult children? key players like weisselberg. who are the other key people that could be investigated here other than the family? >> reporter: really, conceivably, nobody else. a number of people that were involved in the trump organization are either unindicted co-conspirators or cooperated in the investigation. on top of that, there were individuals brought before the grand jury in the state of new york. that immunizes them from being prosecuted for anything they could testify to. it's a tradeoff, if you will, for prosecutors. they can get the information, but they can't use it against that particular person. they have to be careful and judicious how they use it. they were able to get that. to your point, it's really about the former president and his family. of course, in all of this, we can't forget the fact that the attorney general, who is involved in this investigation today and involved in the case of weisselberg, they continue their civil investigation. that's something that's

outstanding. now that the entirety of the trump family has provided their depositions in that particular case, it's likely that the attorney general will be coming to a decision point in the near future here as far as what she wants to do if there's a civil complaint, no jail time, but potentially fines and other issues for the trump organization and the family. >> tom, stand by just with us for a moment, because our colleague ken dilanian has some reporting on some breaking news. this is a memorandum just released by the former president relating to something he signed, declassification order, on january 19, the day before he left office, involving the crossfire hurricane investigation. can you give us the context? >> yes, i can. tease very interesting that donald trump has put that out today. this memo is not new. we have known about this. it was signed just before he left office and trump was seeking to declassify parts of a binder of documents that the

white house had received from the fbi and justice department relating to that crossfire hurricane, that trump russia investigation, where trump felt aggrieved and felt like there was wrongdoing. his position was, we need to get out these records that make the doj look bad and make me look good. i remember at the time, i reported at the time that there were people inside the justice department, the intelligence community that did not want some of the documents declassified. there were sensitivities potential of the names of confidential sources. the question is, what happened after this memo? this memo instructs the attorney general to take certain action pursuant to the declassification authority. if, in fact, these documents were not declassified, but yet some of them are at mar-a-lago, that may explain part of what's going on here. there's a man that most americans don't know but you and i are familiar with, cash patel.

he has said publically that he was involved in helping trump declassify these materials and try to get them made public. he was named in about june of this year as one of trump's liaisons to the national archives. what he said was an effort to try to make public some of the trump russia documents. the fact donald trump is posting this today suggests that he believes this is related to the fbi search of his house and the question of whether there were classified documents there that shouldn't have been there. >> this would, of course, be an attempt to show that from his perspective, these documents that were found there were benign, there's nothing sir repetitious, these were declassified on january 19. that said, what we believe from what we know otherwise from the investigation, from the search warrant, is that there were a lot of other documents in addition to these top secret

compartmentalized. >> right. some of these may have had that designation as well. even though he has this order saying he declassified it, there are other instances during the trump administration when trump put out a notice saying i declassify in one case the carter pfizer warrant and lawyers sued and a judge in one case said, i'm sorry, this memo from donald trump did not effectively declassify the documents. it didn't happen here. the same could be said of this. we need to find out what happened pursuant to the order trump is releasing. were the documents declassified after trump left office or were they not? >> in this case, at least there is a paper trail, because on many of the others that he insisted he declassified, there was the supposition there was no evidence of it and he is showing -- this is beneficial to him if he can establish that he actually declassified it.

that said, i'm going to bring in tom winter who is still with us. tom, whether or not the documents that were taken from mar-a-lago and not returned to the archives were classified or not, it's not relevant to the three potential crimes that were laid out in the search warrant, because they involved the espionage act and obstruction. they have to be damaging to the national security. they didn't have to be classified, correct? >> reporter: right. you hit the nail on the head. the charges or potential charges that are listed in this parts of the search warrant that have been unseal and made public that we have been talking about, perhaps don't pertain to this, but let's just take what the memorandum that's been tweeted out here apparently today or put on truth social, i should say and take it to its full conclusion. if those documents were properly declassified and properly made

available, whether or not they were published to you and i and everybody watching us, separate story. if they were properly declassified, that would not be a criminal offense. there would be no probable cause for the fbi to enter mar-a-lago. we know the fbi believes that there were crimes that were committed here. the justice department has said there's an ongoing criminal investigation here. they have said that publically now. if this was all properly done, there would be nothing to investigate. i think that's kind of the underlying point here. we know from the memorandum released today that the fbi had significant concerns about some of the material becoming declassified. it's important to remember that throughout the course of the crossfire hurricane investigation, that was initially a counterintelligence investigation. different criminal almo element criminal prosecutions. it was a counterintelligence investigation initially.

that's sensitive stuff. we will have to see how this kind of all shakes out. it doesn't quite add up to everything that we have seen so far in the mar-a-lago search. >> there's still the basic issue that documents are not to supposed to go to presidential homes. they go to the national archives and processed for libraries. tom winter, ken dilanian, thank you so much. joining us now is the former general counsel of the national security agency serving during the obama and trump administrations. glen, good to see you. can you clear up -- you have seen this member know as we have seen it. but the basis for the search warrant was based on the fact that documents that were supposed to be in the national archives and in many cases were secret and top secret were at the president's home and whether or not they are classified or declassified is almost irrelevant. then the issue of whether the president of the united states even when he is in office can

just summarily declassify something because he is bringing papers up to his residence at night. that's a lot, if you can unpack it. >> it is a lot. the story gets more confusing almost every day. the latest news that was posted on truth social about the declassification of the so-called crossfire hurricane documents actually i don't think helps the former president's case at all. first, as you absolutely correctly pointed out, the three statutes mentioned in the search warrant do not have anything to do with classification or declassification of documents. one could be guilty of a crime of improperly mishandling government records under those three statutes whether or not something was declassified. secondly, i don't think this is going to help the president, because if it turns out that this new note that he just posted about specific declassification, in fact, led to something that was

declassified, that would undercut his argument that he just generally has the right to announce that something is declassified by taking a document upstairs. as ken dilanian reported earlier, there are two court cases decided with the support of trump's own department of justice that specifically said there needs to be a specific process about declassifying documents and that the president merely tweeting about it a declassification is not enough. let alone taking documents upstairs that we don't know what they are. >> you were an official in one of the most secret agencies in our government. when you left government, what were you allowed to take with you? files that you -- that were declassified? could you take things home, put them in your library? >> i had some mementos i wish i could have kept. but i couldn't keep any. i wasn't allowed to take a pencil or pen. when one leaves government service at a senior level, this

would include high ranking officials as well as someone such as the president, who takes an oath to support our laws, you get debriefed as to what you are allowed to take at the lower level and the senior level, you are not allowed to take anything at all because it remains classified. it has to remain inside secure government facilities. you are not allowed to take a copy or your notes about it. there's no question about this, this is not a complex issue at all. >> when the president is briefed in the morning in the oval office and in the situation room, but when the president is briefed in the oval office, have they prepared the oval office as they did the national securities office some years ago because of its exposure, the way it's situated in the west wing campus, the windows are protected against eavesdropping? these are special locations when you are reading these documents, correct? >> absolutely. all of these documents, there are serious rules that have been

developed over decades about how to handle and view classified documents. we want to make sure none of our adversaries get a chance to look at them. they would love to do so. you are right, in white house, there are certain designated areas where you can access this kind of classified information and view it. there are other parts, including significant open public parts of the white house, where you can't even take the document, even if you are just walking across the hallway. there are serious rules around this for good reason. >> when he says that he just had a standing order to declassify things so he could take them upstairs at night, your reaction to that? >> number one, it's hard to believe -- no one has any record of any order. his chief of staff, john bolton, says he is not -- he wasn't aware of it. he characterizes it as something not true at all. i find it hard to accept. even if we accept it, it makes no sense at all. it can't possibly be the case

that merely by taking some documents upstairs -- we don't know what they are or even have an ability later on to figure out what they were -- that they became declassified. when he went downstairs again, if he changed his mind, did they get reclassified? who knows? >> glen, thank you so much for your expertise on all of this. >> thank you. the fbi search of mar-a-lago has been good business for donald trump. "the washington post" reporting contributions to the former president's political action committee topped $1 million on two days last week as supports were bombarded with emails asking for money. mr. trump is believed even more likely to run for president after defeating his chief nemesis liz cheney in her re-election bid in wyoming on tuesday. joining me now, former democratic national committee chair and virginia governor terry mcauliffe and former republican national committee chair and maryland lieutenant governor michael steele. what a pair of former chairs. thank you both so much. michael steele, first, your reaction to the money that

donald trump is making off the fbi mar-a-lago search. >> andrea, that's what it is all about. it's all about the money. we don't do this because if we don't get paid, we don't do it. the question i have i have is, these people giving their money to this supposed billionaire, who is no longer in office? this has always been about the grift. i can show you countless messages, give donald trump d. oh, you haven't given to trump yet? he's upset. people just churn the cash out. every month where donald trump's name is in the news, on any subject, is a moment to raise money for donald trump. crib bugss to the candidacies he

endorsed probably less than a million, but he's banking the rest. that's the bottom line, and always has been. people,'s gullible as they ever can be, continue to send him a check. thieve told if you don't write him a check off this metropolitan's rent, you know, he's going to be in trouble. that's the narrative. >> terry, it must drive democrats crazy that, as bad as the news on the legal front gets, you teflon former president donald trump appears to be turning this into a gold mine. >> we're about to go into loy day and i tell democrats just forget about donald trump. we have a president, a democratic congress that as delivered no america's working families. think about this, you have a president who has created 10 million new jobs, 528,000 just in the month of july, passed the

american rescue plan which saved us from the covid pandemic, then got an infrastructure bill done, which we haven't been able to do since president eisenhower. got a chip build to take on china, got nato working together to fight russians against ukraine, got a gun safety bill passed, and now the inflation act which reduces healthcare costs, cap seniors out-of-pocket expenses? this is what we should be talking about going into the mid ferment elections. joe biden and democrats in congress have delivered. what a great message to go into the fall campaign. record millions of new jobs being created. we're focussed on american families. >> but, terry, the candidates out on the road -- and you've been a road warrior yourself so often -- >> yeah. >> -- they have the headwinds of the president's terribly

historic poll numbers. >> once roe v. wade, people woke up. you saw what happened in kansas. the bill to protect our veterans, to protect those exposed to burn pits, that's all what president joe biden has done. so we need to talk about the things that we actually get done. i always tell democrats focus on the positive. as governor, i talked about the economy every day. that's our secret sauce. joe biden and the democrats in congress have delivered for america's working families. the poll numbers, forget the poll numbers, what goes it that you're taking to the voters? they're chied, energized, as i say, after roe v. wade. joe biden has passed more historic legislation than lyndon baines johnson. that should be our message every single day. >> michael steele, just jump in

here. there's still the historic trends. only twice in a hundred years has the party in the white house, the party in power, not faced, you know, major losses, not lost the house or senate. >> that's true. >> can they overcome that history? >> yes, they can. the reason they can is because this goes not then we're seeing generic ballot polling favor democrats while joe biden is sitting at 40% approval. that's unprecedented. typically that generic ballot should be plus ten republican at this point. it is plus seven democrats. we've watched republicans lose ground. why? because of the candidates they're nominating, the message they're sending to the american people is, give us power, and then we'll tell you what we're going to do with it. what they're showing by the actions in the states is they

want to penalize women, their pregnancies, their wombs, they want to control that. a lot of republican women are rejecting that message. the heavy-handedness of the gop versus to the chairman's point, the president's agenda, is giving the democrats an opportunity to have a conversation that republicans can't interrupt, because people see it and they -- while they may be disappointed with where the economy is, andrea, they're looking at the road ahead and going, that's a dark tunnel the republicans want to take us through. a lot of voter are saying we may not want to go there. we'll have to leave it there. thank you both so much. before we go, some really sad news. i want to take a moment to send or condolences to richard engel. hi son henry passed away recently. he let with a neurological

disorder. richard writes he had the softest blue eyes, easy smile and contagious giggle. we always surrounded him with love and we returned it and so much more. henry was 6 years old. his legacy lives on. richard says researchers are making amazing progress, using henry's cells so other children don't have to suffer through this disease. "chris jansing reports" right after this. "chris jansing reports" right after this

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♪♪ right now you are looking at a live picture of the federal courthouse in west palm beach, florida. as we speak, a high-stakes hearing is getting underway that could ultimately reveal new details about the search at mar-a-lago. a decision on that could come any time now. it will pit the justice department against several news organizations that are asking a federal magistrate judge to unseal the affidavit. the justice department said that would be a grave mistake, warning if disclosed,ed affidavit would serve as a road map to the government's ongoing investigation, providing specific details in a manner that's highly likely to compromise future vase i steps. last night on this