this paper came to be behind a padlock, on physical paper, in a banker's realized he didn't hae the attention span. he preferred the images and one-pagers. that's donald trump for you. mike allen, we'll speak on "morning joe," as well. thanks for getting up "way too early" with us on this friday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." as you look at the sun just coming up over the united states capitol on friday, august 19th. it is a busy friday. that decision on whether to release the probable cause affidavit in the mar-a-lago search still up in the air this morning, after a federal judge gave the government a week to redact the information it does not want made public. and for all of donald trump's bluster about releasing the affidavit, his legal team was noticeably silent during

yesterday's hearing. why is he more willing to fight the case in the court of public opinion than in actual court of law? plus, the former chief financial executive in the trump organization could have him testifying against the company in another trial that is expected to run up against the november elections. and speaking of the midterms, mitch mcconnell downplays now republican chances of retaking the senate, blaming the, quote, quality of his party's candidates. we'll have the new polling and reporting that shows mcconnell's concerns may be well-founded. joe, some more polls in the critical senate races across the country show why mcconnell may be concerned in august. >> word is they've already given up on pennsylvania. they've already given up on dr. oz. they're probably going to focus more in ohio and j.d. vance, hoping that he has a chance.

but we have polls showing that this area, this stretch of critical swing states in the upper midwest all breaking against the republican candidates. and, you know, for good reasons. we've got a lot to talk about today. first, willie, i couldn't help but notice yesterday, and even fox news hosts noticed it last night, you once again have donald trump and his minions blathering outside of a courthouse about the gross injustice and what they want done, release the affidavit, this and that and the other. then they go into the courthouse, and they're strangely mute. not a word. so i think that's fascinating. mitch starting to realize -- well, he's known all along, the candidates are really weak.

also, i just wanted to start off today, willie, and we'll take it around the table here. we've got david ignatius, michael steel, and katty kay. first, willie, yesterday, i talked about how the republicans were putting targets on the backs of irs agents. lying about what supposedly is in this bill that just became law. and they are all lies. and then that, of course, goes on top of what happened with fbi agents. fbi worried about unprecedented threats. as i was saying that yesterday, i have a good friend who is an election official. a republican his whole life. i don't think he's ever voted for a democratic presidential candidate in his life. immediately texted me during the show. he goes, "hey, what about election officials?" we're getting death threats if we don't buy into conspiracy

theories. three election officials said, "enough, we're tired for the death threats. we didn't sign up for this. we're quitting." it is not an overstatement to say that the republican party is putting in danger the lives of many great americans who just want to serve their government. these lies especially about the irs agents, so reckless and irresponsible. well, just like the fbi agents. and i know mitch mcconnell understands, that's part of the problem, too. he's got one of the most senior members in the united states senate saying that the irs is coming to homes in iowa with ar-15s. you've got fox news hosts saying they're coming with ar-15s to kill middle-class americans.

it's -- this is, you know, like 11:30, and oklahoma city is at 12:00. these people are leading us to a very dangerous, dark place, before federal employees and state employees and election employees are going to get killed if they don't stop with their rhetoric. >> yeah. joe, it is an unforgiable lie that people are telling that know it's a lie. it's easily disproven. there are 87,000 new irs agents? there are not 87,000 new irs agents, by the way. that was a projection by the treasury department last year on something else. the ones being hired are not carrying ar-15s and kicking in the doors of small business owners and making them pay their taxes, or worse if you listen to some of these people. you're right, it may get them ratings, may win a few votes, may keep them in power in their district, but they are stet seth

setting the table for something dangerous and violent in this country. they don't care. when the day comes, and god forbid, i hope it doesn't, blood will be on their hands. there is no question. >> i know this all sounds melodramatic until you have the head of the fbi saying we're facing unprecedented threats. people that i know, people i've known my entire life are texting me and talking about replacing the u.s. government. talking about civil war. you go, what's wrong with you? they say, the irs agents are coming with ar-15s. they're coming to our doors. they're going to kill us. or they're saying that fbi is coming to raid our house and take our guns away from us. these are the lies that have been spread not by -- this is what is disturbing -- not by back benchers. these lies have been spread by chuck grassley, by kevin mccarthy, by top news hosts at

fox news. this is not "info wars." this is mainstream, pro-trump rhetoric. they are deliberately trying to get americans to a position of where they'll do harm to irs agents. can you imagine? can you imagine? i just want to -- i just -- i don't -- do i have the quote here? i think i saved the quote in my ipad. can you imagine chuck grassley talking about the irs having a strike force, quote, that goes in with ar-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small business people. a top fox news host saying that the irs is coming to, quote, hunt down and kill middle-class taxpayers. irs coming to hunt down and kill middle-class taxpayers.

i want to get to the affidavit. i want to get to the affidavit we are talking about, people who are deliberately trying to gin up a civil war. their followers are actually going along with it. i know this because they're my family members and they're lifelong republicans and people who used to be reagan conservatives, talking about civil war. and a guy that you and i both have known for a long time -- i'm not saying his name -- telling me very, very smugly a couple days ago, "you know, the u.s. government is not sacrosanct. the u.s. government can be replaced." >> it's incredible that we've got ton this point. one of our two major parties is now an angry, populist, anti-government party. its members are aroused by the idea that the government is the enemy. they talk about fbi officers who serve in the line of fire as government gangsters.

>> the gestapo. >> corrupt cops. these are the people who, for generations, since i can remember the fbi, were defended primarily by republicans. it was liberals who criticized the fbi. now, we have a party that wants to take apart this administrative country. it is scary. this group, this populist movement that's taken over the republican party so seems to be going with physical intimidation. we'll back you up. the only hope -- you and i talked about this so often on this show -- lies with sensible republicans. people like the ones we've seen in the january 6th hearings. the republicans who stood up, the former attorney general bill barr. former white house counsel pat cipollone. a whole list of other people who, at considerable personal risk, stood up and said what trump was doing was not right.

i couldn't abide it. i won't abide it. the republican state election officials around the country, the people in georgia who were running this investigation, who said, "we won't do it," who stood up to the intimidators. if those people begin to buckle, then we're really in trouble. that's our, i think, joe, last best hope, people like that. >> when you start talking about violence and intimidation, that's fascism. what i want to know is, what i want to know is, michael steel, what would it cost pat toomey? what would it cost rob portman? what would it cost mitt romney to hold a press conference and to tamp down this rhetoric and to call out the rhetoric that is calling our law enforcement officers the gestapo and spreading lies about the irs that's reached the mainstream of the republican party? that irs agents are coming with ar-15s to households in middle

america to shoot businessowners. >> nothing will stop them. >> why aren't they do it? >> they don't want the backlash. they don't want the noise inside the republican caucus, from hotheads who remind them, look -- >> do they want oklahoma city? >> they don't believe oklahoma city will happen. >> they've already had it. they've already had the possibility of it in ohio. >> oh, i know, i know. but that's the problem. >> they already had it on january 6th. >> look at the arc, joe. i mean, it's not just now. what about in the past? i mean, the problem is, this has been a narrative that's been a part of the republican conversation on these issues since trump. they don't want to put themselves at risk. even while they're leaving office, even while they are stepping down from the job, they cannot, in this moment, go to a bank of microphones and say, "this is wrong." >> it is wrong for fox news host

to say that the irs is coming to, quote, hunt down and kill middle-class taxpayers? >> right. >> they can't say that? >> too risky. >> when a colleague talks about a strike force going in with ar-15s loaded and ready to shoot some small business person in iowa, they can't do a press conference and say, "that's reckless rhetoric. if we have issues with the irs, we will take it up in committee. "that's what we used to do. if we thought the fbi overstepped or didn't go far enough, we'd have them go in front of the relevant committees and have hearings. by the way, as willie brought up, the irs had guns since 199, 1919, and they had them when donald trump was president and never said a thing. >> you had mike pence saying attacks on fbi agents had to stop. he did go as far as to say, the maga -- he didn't use the term

maga crowd, but he was speaking clearly to the maga crowd who got riled up since the raid on mar-a-lago, and he did come out. but you need a lot more senior republicans to come out, if only to defend the agents and the irs agents and the election workers who are now feeling under threat. i spent a day recently with an election worker, conservative woman in georgia who had had to move her vehicle from its parking place in the parking lot in front of her window because the fbi were warning her that she could be hit by a bomb and the vehicle would stop the blast of the bomb from breaking her window and hurting her inside. her husband was so frightened by the threats she was getting, he accompanied her to work on election days. that's what it's got to. she has worked there 20 years. god fearing, conservative, georgian woman. she says one in five of her staff are just quitting. it's too scary for them. to be a civil servant who

monitors elections. how innocuous job can that be? it should be a low key job that anybody should feel safe doing. >> volunteers. willie, volunteers, for instance, like the two in georgia whose lives were ruined when rudy giuliani and other people, people that i know, spread a lie around the internet about them taking out suitcases of ballots. this is -- it isn't even just civil service workers. these are volunteers, the type of people who i used to go shake hands on every election day and say, "i know you don't have to be here. this is really important for american democracy. thank you." those people are now afraid and being warned of car bombs. >> yeah, you're talk about ruby freeman and moss, who testified before the election committee. volunteers and workers in the state of georgia, trying to

help. shay moss testified that her grandmother, elderly grandmother, got a knock on her door and two trump supporters burst into the house, is saying they were there to make a citizens arrest of her daughter and granddaughter because of what they heard of the suitcase, which, of course, turned out not to be true. you can add school boards into that. it is happening at all these levels, people who are just trying to volunteer and help out locally. let's bring into the conversation attorney and contributing columnist for "the washington post," george conway. and the host of "way too early," our good friend jonathan lemire. george, let you get in on this conversation about the irs. as joe said, it's not just these dark corners of the internet anymore. this is the leadership of the republican party. kevin mccarthy, chuck grassley, for god sakes, saying agents with ar-15s are going to kick in people's doors. is there any shame left at all? >> no. i mean, we're clearly in the continuing stages of a downward spiral, where the rhetoric keeps getting worse and worse.

in order to feed the beast they've created, they double down on the rhetoric. the problem is, it's like a practical joke that got out of hand. they're all taking it very, very seriously now. we used to use -- you know, people are used to using fight rhetoric in politics. we use it all the time. but, you know, it's become more and more nefarious and more and more specific as time goes on, to the point of just factual lies about how the government goes about its business. when you start undermining the people who actually enforce the laws and the people who actually help us decide who has gotten more votes, and you have people who are enforcing the law being threatened, you know, this is how democracies and republics fall. >> we're seeing here, joe, the continued evolution of donald trump and his impact on the

republican party. we know he has not been shy to promoting the use of violence and conspiracy theories. his whole political career is based on the conspiracy theory of birthism. it accelerated during his time in office, fueling the big lie, and it led to january 6th. he's always had a nod and a wink toward violence as being part of the acceptable political discourse. remember him calling to the proud boys from the debate stage. we know that he thought that it would be, quote, wild, what happened on january 6th. and this has only continued since he left office. it's been amplified by his fellow republicans and also the conservative media. not the fringes of the media. popular primetime host on cable, right-leaning cable networks, are saying the same things. that's who is hearing it day after day. that's what is inspiring potential violence against fbi agents. we saw what happened in cincinnati. connecting it to the mar-a-lago search a week ago, that's part of the trump plan.

they want the affidavit fully unsealed, in part so they can get to the bottom of what witnesses are cooperating against them, perhaps, but also to identify fbi agents who are involved. to put their lives potentially in danger, too, where they can use the threat of violence and intimidation to achieve their political means. >> those of us who grew up with ronald reagan as one of our political heros, and bill buckley, we conservatives, we all remember a moment and read about the moment, where both of them separated themselves from the john birch society. they realized unless they separated themselves from the extreme elements of the conservative movement at the time, they could never reach the mainstream. buckley did it. reagan did it. and when they did it, ronald reagan began the conserative counterrevolution in '66. the reagan revolution. if they hadn't have done it, pat

brown would have beaten him in 1966 in california and the world would have been completely different. that's what i don't understand about this, michael steel. i don't understand. mitch mcconnell, we're going to play these illuminating thoughts by mitch. he's saying the truth out loud. hey, we may not take the senate back over. we should, but we may not because the candidates suck. he didn't say it that way, but the candidates that donald trump has put up there suck. now, he's got his most senior members going around, saying things that could get government workers killed. and the people that keep apologizing for the terrorists on january 6th, people he thinks are terrorists. i mean, his speech on january 6th and his actions on january 6th, very notable. but it is having an impact. this is what i don't understand. i'll say it again, trump lost the white house. he lost the house.

went out of his way, did the yeoman's work to lose the senate for republicans. first guy since herbert hoover to lose all three in one four-year term. it's happening again. look at this poll from arizona. i mean, let's just face it. i mean, mark kelly has underperformed politically in many ways. he underperformed in the 2020 election. he didn't raise as much money as people originally thought. he was lagging behind in the polls is six months ago. look at this, in arizona, it's not close. we can see the same thing in wisconsin. we saw ron johnson. ron johnson was ahead before. now, in this fox news poll that came out yesterday, he's down four points. in the marquette poll, which is the gold standard for that state, he's down by even more points. in pennsylvania, dave mccormick,

dave mccormick would be, like, walking through the office building going, i wonder what office i should pick out right now? a republican that was running against dr. oz. mccormick would seriously already be picking out his office. democrats would have given up on pennsylvania. they've got dr. oz. so now, republicans literally said yesterday, they basically sent out the word, we're giving up on pennsylvania. >> that's right. >> putting it all on ohio. oz, i guess, crudite thing. >> he choked on the crudite. >> never speak french in an american election. john kerry could have told you. >> remember the monte python scene? is that a sport? crudite, is that a sport? all of this has an impact. then you add the hate speech on

top of that. you add the rhetoric, where republicans, senior republicans are saying they're going to have a strike force that goes in with ar-15s loaded, ready to shoot small business people in iowa. g.d. it, is all i'll say. this has an impact. if you are a republican, you should be as outraged as me. even if you are a cold-hearted political beast, you should be as angry as me because this is going to beat mitch mcconnell and the republican party. >> absolutely. >> so why aren't they speaking out like reagan did, like buckley did, against the extremists in their midst that are going to have them lose yet another election? >> because they are not reagan. >> they're cowards. >> they're cowards. >> they're scared, intimidated. >> they have been scared.

they've been intimidated. they've been bullied. when you can stand on a debate stage with donald trump, who at that point in time in 2016, is at 5%, 6%, 7% approval, and he calls out your wife, calls out your daddy, he calls out your mama, and you say nothing, you've already seen the seed bed laid for how this is going to play out. there is not one among them who wear pants, who will stand up to him. that's the liz cheney problem republicans have. because she did. she showed herself to be better, stronger, more resilient, and more resistant to the trump infection than the men who are in leadership. so much so, that they pushed her out of leadership. so we sit here and go, well, why are they doing this? look at what they've done. >> right. >> i mean, i'm not -- it doesn't surprise me.

>> you understand, this is a whole new level, though. they are leading -- >> of course. >> -- us straight into another oklahoma city. >> of course. >> and they have mainstream republicans -- >> they do -- >> -- talking about civil war. >> they'll do this when it happens. they'll blame joe biden, hunter biden, everybody else but themselves, which is why you, me, and other republicans, former republicans, have to make it very clear. this is on your hands. this is what you are creating because you're not taking advantage of this moment, the john birch moment you referred to, to stand up and say and do something about it. >> what's incredible is, 2022 should just be a walk in the park for republicans. this should be the easiest -- >> yeah. >> this should look like the year i got in in 1994. i mean, this would have been so easy. >> yeah. >> on every front, they are making it difficult for themselves. >> yeah. >> whether it's on social issues

like abortion, whether it's on the candidates they are choosing, whether it's on the violent rhetoric. just ask the democrats how well de-fund x goes. doesn't go well with suburban voters. de-fund the fbi. de-fund the -- >> just talk to democrats. >> by the way -- >> i can see it super well with women in the suburbs of philly. >> who investigates islamic terrorism in america? >> yeah. >> in the suburbs. the fbi keeps you safe. who investigates and chases down terror threats across america while you're sleeping in the suburbs of atlanta? the fbi. who chases down people that run human trafficking rings and want to snatch your children out of malls in the suburbs of atlanta and charlotte and philadelphia? the fbi.

and you want to de-fund the fbi? you want to turn these agencies, these people that keep america safe every day from the greatest threats, from the drug cartels, you want to de-fund them? >> and they say they want to break them. what are you breaking the fbi up into? >> not talking mob bell here. >> to the point of your friend, i think it's important to note, he said u.s. government can be replaced. he or she said that. >> yeah. >> they realize, of course, that our founders made it very clear that we, the people, are the government. >> right. >> it's not an institution, it's not a building. that's what sets us apart from every other republic democracy. >> election is every two yeas. >> he's saying the people can be replaced. >> there you go. that's it. >> we can go to break. i could go all day, and i just may. but they used to always say, oh, it's ted kennedy and his radical schemes. he's a murderer.

he's coming after you next. and then it was, who was the next boogieman? they would go from one, it's jesse jackson. jesse jackson wants to blah, blah, blah. recent years, it is nancy pelosi, san francisco liberal. she's a radical. then it was, aoc, a back bencher. it's aoc, she's running the government. then it's kamala harris. oh, it's kamala harris, she's coming after you. it's bernie sanders, he's a lib. they now are willing to throw away the greatest experiment in the history of humankind. >> yes, they are. >> over a moderate, over a moderate from delaware, whose biggest knock against him within his own party was he was too close to credit card companies. >> right. >> they have defined radicalism

down so much that it is just preposterous. willie, i'm james brown! i need -- >> let me get the cape. >> "godfather," it's okay. i just can't stop myself. hot tub. >> the good part about the cape, though, joe, is he always comes back. when you think he is done with the cape on, he throws it off and does another song. we'll look forward to that. i want to read a quote from congressman dan crenshaw from texas, republican from texas. he says this, i'm impressed democrats finally got us to say de-fund the fbi. that just makes us look un-serious when we start talking about that. obviously, i don't know that it was the democrats that made him do it, but the point is, republicans are now saying de-fund the fbi. to your point, i'd add in here, joe, just this week, the fbi rescued 200 people from a sex trafficking ring, including 84 children. and these are not imaginary people being sex trafficked in a

pizza shop in washington, like qanon and conspiracy theorists said. these were actual human beings rescued by the fbi, the agency. some republicans, anyway, now say they want to de-fund it. >> again, here's the thing, trump -- and i always said this -- he boils it down. he's boiled it down to his 40% base, now 35% of the country. there are a hell of a lot of republicans and independents who understand that. when they start talking about de-funding the fbi, de-funding people who go after child traffickers, de-funding people who go after drug cartels, de-funding people who want to blow up -- have the next 9/11, you got swing voters who understand that. it doesn't end up costing democrats. it ends up costing republicans. republicans, please, for the sake of this country, and for the sake of your party, get

these people in line. save lives now while you can. when we come back, we're going to be talking about the judge that gave a surprising decision in the mar-a-lago search case. we'll talk about it with people much smarter than me when we return. republicans in congress call them "entitlements." a "ponzi scheme." the women and men i served with in combat, we earned our benefits. just like people earned their social security and medicare benefits.

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beautiful live picture of the white house on a summer friday at 6:34 in the morning. the federal judge deciding whether to unseal the affidavit in the unprecedented search of mar-a-lago appeared to stake out the middle ground yesterday. saying he is inclined to unseal that affidavit. magistrate judge bruce rhinehart gave the justice department until next thursday to submit redactions. in a written ruling, the judge said, quote, the government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed. the judge said he would review the proposed redactions, then decide if he agrees with them. he did not give a timeline beyond next thursday. saying, quote, this is going to be a considered, careful process. the government argued against unsealing the affidavit, claiming it would jeopardize its investigation and because it contains, quote, substantial grand jury information with national security overtones. the justice department also indicated for the first time

yesterday that more than one person inside trump's orbit could be working with the government. stating, quote, the court is aware of what several witnesses said. only certain people would have that knowledge. trump again yesterday called for the full affidavit to be released without redactions, but his legal team did not file anything in the case or even participate in the hearing. one of his attorneys, christina bobb, was in court but said she was just there to watch. she was pressed about that last night on fox news. >> i'm wondering, are you not concerned that because you didn't join any of these motions for, again, the full release of this affidavit, that you're then waiving possible objections to the way redactions are being done by the justice department later on? because you didn't speak in court today, nor did you join any of the motions. they're going to redact all this stuff, and i'm not sure what grounds you're going to have at

this point, having waived your right to file those motions. >> well, we maintain that we haven't waived our right, and that still is maintained. you know, we need to wait and see. i can't be certain at this point because we haven't seen the affidavit. we certainly haven't seen the redactions and how it is going to play out. but, you know, we'll be making that decision as it comes out. you know, we got to see it. we haven't seen it. it has been under seal. i don't know. we can't say. >> joe, donald trump's attorney literally silent in court yesterday. literally. >> what is that? what is that? poor laura ingram. it's like a t-ball coach. okay, you get the bat. what you do is, you don't -- you swing through like that. you watch. like, it's every night, laura is having to go, okay, so you know if you don't object to that, you may waive your right to the

objections further. what was it the other day that she was -- i forget what she was saying. but every night, this lawyer comes on, and it's just crazy. oh, yeah, then they're talking about leaking the names. but, george, maybe there is some sanity in this madness. i'm going to talk to david ignatius in a second about this, but he has been doing reporting. chances are good that while they would like to know the names of now two, possibly two people inside calling, you know -- the call coming from inside the house. maybe there are two people now inside of mar-a-lago or inside of trump world informing on him. david ignatius has done reporting this week and has been looking and thinking, contents probably really bad. >> correct. >> it is something that the trump people don't -- donald trump will do what rudy does outside of courthouses and howl and make a scene.

but go inside the courtroom and stay silent. >> absolutely. >> what republicans in washington, d.c. know, and i had friends tell me a couple days ago, it's one of the reasons this irs conspiracy theory started, is when they figured out how bad this is going to be for trump. >> yeah. >> they're trying to change the subject. >> they're trying to have it three ways. they're being mendaciously three-faced about it. first of all, they themselves would like to see the affidavit because, you know, tony soprano wants to know who is the rat. they want to see who is finking on them. that's one. two is, they don't want us to see the affidavit because it's bad. it's a long affidavit, and it is going to have a lot of information about a lot of people saying a lot of bad things about the bad things that the president -- the former president of the united states did and how he squirrelled away these documents and refused to give them back when he was repeatedly told he had to give

them back and was subpoenaed to return them. then, third, they want an issue, a b.s. issue, so they can send out the fundraising grift emails to raise money by saying, "oh, they're hiding the affidavit from us." those are the three things going on. actually, i -- there is a method to this madness. it is all very dishonest and disgraceful, but that's what -- that's par for the course. >> david ignatius, dishonest and disgraceful, not the first time it's been used to describe trump world and their handling of they thinks like this. you've been doing reporting around the issue. give us what you've learned, and what is the current state of the investigation? >> jonathan, simply put, the government's affidavit is, by its own description, so detailed, so full of the evidence that they've go, that

they're pursuing, that they are arguing as strenuous as they can, none of this can be disclosed. this is a road map to our future investigation. fact that it is being led by the head of counterintelligence prosecutions at the justice department should tell us something. this is the most serious kind of prosecution. one of the statutes that was invoked before the judge to get the search warrant was the espionage act. what do know this is a several of seriousness beyond anything i've watched in terms of trump investigations. you know, where is this going? there will be a battle next week over whether any of this affidavit can be shown to the public. the judge, judge rhinehart, says he thinks he can come one a version. if you read the justice department pleadings, they say there is nothing beyond -- when you redact all the crucial information, there is nothing left here.

it is so rich with detail, it might compromise their investigation. the thing that's become clearest to me in my reporting is that this is about classified material that trump took to mar-a-lago that is beyond any of the things that had been stated, asserted about russiagate. this is about secrets that are so sensitive, that their disclosure, it could cause grave harm to the united states. there is reason to believe that the trump team simply wasn't honest about what they had. so the next chapter of this, however much trump bashed the irs people or are excited about it, i don't think it'll have -- it'll turn off more people than it'll excite. >> i mean, in order to have an impact, certainly in trump world, but even with people who may have voted for trump and are now a little fed up with him, the findings that the fbi took

out of mar-a-lago, i think, would have to be enormous. what you're hearing from people who support donald trump at the moment is, january 6th, blah, didn't even really listen to it. all of this is just one more investigation. i think it gets kind of lost in a jumble of investigations that they don't really care about because that is all of the deep state trying to get their guy. it seems to me, politically, in november, michael, the stuff that is almost more important is what joe was talking about. it's this ginning up of violence against fbi agents. it's the extremism perhaps of roe v. wade. it's that that is moving people politically. because they're not really tuning into the nitty-gritty -- the january 6th hearings have been masterful as a class in narrative building, but i'm not sure how much they're tuning into that or the details of investigations and the mar-a-lago stuff. if it is not super explosive, what the fbi has found, it will just be seen as government

overreach. >> you know -- >> in attacking their guy. >> i'll agree with some of that, to a point. i will push back a little bit on how the american people are digesting this. i think people have paid a lot more attention to this than we may realize in the end. i think it's reflective in where we're seeing, to joe's point, about the importance of the senate, the nervousness of mitch mcconnell. their internal numbers are showing an enormous weakness in races that they should be winning. not just in the senate but in the house, as well. the house was, oh, yeah, with egot a red wave coming. now, it's like, well, if we get a good sprinkler system that can just shoot at some targeted areas, we'll win. so i'm not sure that the american people -- i think i'm more sure the american people paid more attention to a lot of this. the other thing that's very interesting, and it goes to what david touches on, and certainly what george has laid out, is how

does suburbia take all this in at the end? this is not a good narrative for a lot of suburban voters out there. particularly the attacks on the irs, the attacks on the fbi. they're sick and tired of people being attacked, right? as willie pointed out, you know, we're reporting stories of the fbi saving women and children, and these folks down in d.c. want to de-fund the fbi. so all of these narratives now interwoven i think begin to dynamically change how voters are looking at things this november. which is why the ballots are working against republicans, why seats are slipping away, and why the house looks a little less strong in its potential takeover. i think there's a lot there. david, how do you see these pieces fitting at the end of the

day, as we get into september? because i think we're going to get a bunch of redacted pages. it is going to be a lot of blackouts. >> i'd be surprised if this case plays out fully before the midterm elections. i think merrick garland has been husbanding his resources very carefully. i wouldn't expect a quick resolution. garland has said from the beginning that he is going to build this carefully. investigations in every state of the country. every fbi office has been working on the broad issue of insurrection. on the documents, they've been trying to do this politely. we can do this easily or the hard way. they've been trying since january 6th, and they were unsuccessful. they finally came to this search warrant, carding out the 11 sets

of classified documents. prosecution, as i said, being run by the head of counterintelligence. the quiet on the trump side about this investigation tells you something. they're worried. they don't really know what it is either. i think the one thing we learned about merrick garland is that he is very careful. he will not shoot this gun until he is ready. until he really has something. >> yeah. willie, we're talking about the political environment, how republicans, 2022 should be an incredible year. we've talked about the radical talk, the hate speech, the summoning of people to commit acts of violence by saying the government is coming to get them. i just want to go back, though, to an issue katty brought up. that was the extremism on a lot of these abortion stories that are coming out from different

states, ohio to florida, a lot of swing states. i have been taken by the number of people who consider themselves to be pro life and have considered themselves to be pro life their entire lives, being shocked by the radicalism of these cases that we're hearing. 10-year-old girls that are chased from the state of ohio, who have been raped and have to go to another state because they know ohio will have a forced birth. story out of florida where -- i won't get into the details. it just is shocking, again, even to pro life people. i just want to go back to a focus group. we need more focus groups. we remember back 2016 to the halperin-heilemann focus group, where the one working class woman said of donald trump, "he's one of us." that was, like, a shock.

i go back to the focus group we had in georgia, that elise jordan had, of the trumpers. big trump supporters, they were following him down every path of every conspiracy theory, especially that guy. i think from the suburbs of atlanta. we said, what do you think of roe v. wade? he goes, "none of my business. i'm a man. and why does a man have any say on what a woman does with her body?" this man goes from a far-right trumper to, we're a hell of a lot of independents, the state shouldn't force people to do what they're forcing young girls to do after they're raped. my god, you know, you have a candidate running for governor who is the republican nominee in michigan saying a 14-year-old girl being raped by her uncle is a perfect example of why we need to force her to have a forced birth of the rapist's baby.

this is having a massive impact on a lot of people. >> yeah. >> yeah, there's no question. i mean, even if you're pro life and purely believe that, and so many people in our country do, it is extreme to force a 16-year-old to have a baby in the state of florida because the stated reason is she is not mature enough to make the decision to have an abortion, but she is mature enough to have and raise a child. you have to marinade in that for a moment. katty kay, look what happened in kansas. a red state where people came out, including republicans, by the way, and said, no, we're not going to strike this out of the constitution, that there is a right to an abortion. we may believe that shouldn't be abortion, and that's our right to believe that, but it shouldn't come down from the state in that way. so i guess the question is, are republicans and the more extreme ones, talking about things like joe laid out in those cases, are they overplaying their hand

here? they got the grass ring, roe versus wade was overturned by the supreme court, but some of these things, some of the cases are objectively extreme, no matter your belief on abortion. >> one in four american women had abortions, and that means quite a lot of men know women who had one. there is probably more sympathy for people who had them, an understanding of why women have abortions and the very difficult circumstances that lead to abortions than one might expect around the country. then you have, on top of that, cases of women who are going through miscarriages, who need the dnc procedure to save their lives or to save their health because they're going through terrible medical complications around a miscarriage. the doctor has to say, "i'm sorry, i'm not sure i can do that. in this state, this procedure is banned." you know, perhaps the supreme court didn't think this through, but the consequences of what has happened because of that ruling have sent shockwaves around the country, not just amongst women

but amongst men. as we saw in kansas, counties that voted solidly for donald trump had actually voted to keep a constitutional right to the abortion in kansas. so it is having an impact. women particularly feel that, come november, it'll impact the midterm elections, again, in the suburban areas of the country. it is not just that issue. it is this sense of extremism writ large. i mean, you put that we're in this perfect storm moment. it looks like you have a part of the republican party and some of the organs of government in the u.s. that are out of step with the mainstream of america. whether it come to guns, abortion, and now violence against the operation of the state, the fbi, the people that are meant to keep americans safe. it all just looks too out of step with what polls tell us where most americans are. that's a problem for the party. >> it is. attacks against members of the

american government and using that to fundraise. george conway, i want to talk to you about what happened in new york.weisselberg. before i do that, i can't help but look at a parallel with roe v. wade. as katty said, the brass ring republicans have been chasing since 1973, conservatives have been chasing since 1973, it reminds me of the end of the cold war. we republicans, reagan, bush, won the cold war. christmas day 1991, war is over, baby. we were right all along. the leftists were wrong. we're going to be in the white house for -- oh, wait, bill clinton. and we lose. it's like, it's like, the very thing that shaped -- my family went from being democratic to republican, we won the cold war,

then a guy like bill clinton can be president? no, he can't. he can't control the nuclears. the soviets and -- oh, wait, you don't have the argument anymore. bill clinton wins a year after the soviet union, like, collapses. i'm just looking at roe. the dog caught the car. that's a bad thing for the dog. because the dog was getting treats thrown at it while he was still chasing the car. the dog caught the car and, suddenly, everybody is looking at it and realizing how bad that is for american society. >> absolutely right. they don't know what to do with the car. you codify what people actually believe should happen with abortion, when it should be allowed, they were much more conservative, if you will, or pro life than what roe versus wade constitutionally mandated.

that was the source of a lot of the political opposition. the court went too far, too quickly. even ruth bader ginsburg said that. the problem is, the same difficulty works the other way. when the supreme court, in one foul scoop, overrules 50 years of a constitutional right that has been exercised by, as katty pointed out, a quarter of american women. i mean, that's a shock to the system in the other way. there's going to be -- the pendulum is going to switch back. i mean, somewhere in the middle is, you know, between what roe mandated and these absurd, you know, attempts to ban all abortion, regardless of circumstance, is what people would, if they had to work it out and think about these things, which they don't really like to do because it is very hard and unpleasant, that's where they would come out. that's at least the one thing

that's positive about what's happening now. that process is occurring. people are actually thinking it through, including republicans. they don't want -- you know, they want a reasonable -- you know, they want reasonable leeway for women to get, you know, the help they need when they have medical problems or if they have an unwanted pregnancy. you have the 10-year-old. i mean, it's common sense, and people are looking for that solution. >> right. again, you look at it in ohio with the 10-year-old girl. you look what a republican nominee for governor is saying in michigan. you look at what the texas republicans are saying about fighting joe biden's efforts to save women. mothers on an operating table from death. yeah, those aren't 80/20 issues. they're in the wrong -- they're going in the wrong direction

this. willie, it's really not that much of a mystery, where americans are if you look at the polls on this issue. it is a complicated issue. right now, something like a plurality, like 45% agreed with john roberts. john roberts didn't want to overturn roe. he said, just be incremental. let's go where mississippi is. 15, 16 weeks, through there, then a ban. about 45% of americans support that. that still, of course, wouldn't be enough for people on both sides, but if you want to know where americans are, it sure as hell isn't dobbs. >> no, it's not dobbs. the republicans are playing the extremes on so many issues going up to today, with the fbi and the irs, which we're going to talk about in a moment. we're also going to talk about allen weisselberg, donald trump's long-time right-hand and chief financial officer pleading guilty to charges yesterday. also, pete g ultimatum to t

industry as they struggle to meet demand. the exclusive interview is ahead. plus, an update from ukraine on a concerning situation around europe's largest nuclear power plant. we'll be right back. the new all. that's a “club” i want to join! let's hear from simone. chuck, that's a club i want to join! i literally just said that. i like her better than you the new subway series. what's your pick? this is xfinity rewards. the new subway series. our way of showing our appreciation. with rewards of all shapes and sizes. [ cheers ] are we actually going? yes!! and once in a lifetime moments. two tickets to nascar! yes! find rewards like these and so many more in the xfinity app.

coming up on the top of the hour here in new york city. welcome back to "morning joe." friday, august 19th. a very busy friday morning. a federal judge catches many legal experts off guard after he opened the door to releasing a redacted version of the affidavit in the fbi search of mar-a-lago. that came on the same day the executive who ran finances at the trump organization pleaded guilty in a tax case that could have him testifying against the company in a trial that is expected to run during the midterms. and mitch mcconnell see it is writing on the wall, downplaying republican chances of taking the senate amid new rolling that shows democrats making gains. joe, mitch mcconnell talked about candidate quality. that's saying, we have a bunch of crazy people running for the

united states senate. >> crudite, baby. crudite, right? 2012. was it 2012 that gave us, "i am not a witch"? >> 2010. >> 2010. all right. let's go through this. let's go through this. 1980, nashua, right? i paid for this, mr. green. >> that's it, yeah. what a moment. >> pennsylvania, 2022. crudite. defining moments of the campaign. we have jonathan lemire, katty kay, david ignatius, michael steel with us. joining us of "the washington post" is eugene robinson. also with us, the host of the podcast "on brand with donny deutsch," donny deutsch. all with willie and me. willie, i'll take 16 of them, you take the other 16 of them. we'll go in separate corners and

have a discussion, come back and figure out what we've learned. michael, we're talking, though, about mitch mcconnell. >> yup. >> who is, i've been saying on the show, mitch has to be going crazy. >> oh, he is. >> by the way, he was the guy on january 6th calling out trump. he was the guy calling -- you know. and he has seen donald trump pull herschel walker into georgia, right? >> yeah. >> we all need a decoder to see what herschel walker is saying at any time. you have dr. oz. >> yup. >> you know what that pause is? i'm thinking, they have dave mccormick. >> they had him. >> dave mccormick, like i said, would be measuring drapes. >> they had candidates in other races, as well. >> no, let's go across the hall.

he would have won. it would have been over. but trump wanted a tv doctor, just like trump wanted a heisman trophy winner who didn't live in georgia. just like trump wanted a guy who wrote books and loved silicon valley and loved san francisco and loved the tech industry and loved wearing the little vests, little tech vests, going to conferences with all the techies. i think silicon valley is great. >> right. >> until he goes to pennsylvania. i hate silicon valley. >> right, exactly. >> then, i mean, you go around. in arizona, my god, in arizona, you had some good candidates. i mean, for governor. >> yeah. >> they just -- i mean, mitch knows. this is going to be a much tougher year than it should have been. they should have swept to victory easily. >> that's been one of his big frustrations, because mitch is nothing if not careful and

calculating about how you approach potentially contentious election cycles. how you work your way through a number of those. i remember having conversations in that vain with him in 2010, where we were dealing with "i'm not a witch" and a few other hot pockets. >> you also had todd aiken. >> yeah, no, but -- >> he wasn't '10? >> when claire started pouring money into his campaign? >> yeah. >> democrats talking about, oh, i can't believe they're pouring money into it. i say, talk to claire. >> got her six more years. >> six more years. but the reality for mcconnell, who is always strategic about these things, and i love his conversation, a comment about the type of quality of candidates. >> right. >> because it matters. it matters in a cycle like this,

the kind of people, particularly in statewide races, that are not built around gerrymandered districts. now, you've got to run across the state wher you have independents, center right and center left voters that you have to appeal to. >> yeah. >> if you're looking at a 50/50 senate, and you have a chance to pick up one or two seats, that's mcconnell's thinking. for the longest time, he's been bemoaning the fact that the party, rnc, all those folks, certainly trump, have been pushing forward these candidates who cannot win general elections. >> you think it is a bad idea to nominate a turkish citizen who lives in new jersey for a senate in pennsylvania? >> would not have been my go-to as national carechairman, no. >> you're look at the map and going, mccormick in

pennsylvania. dolan or somebody in ohio. we'll get arizona. win those. somebody good in georgia. georgia is red, we'll win that one because trump blew it for us before. we'll win that one so we can focus on wisconsin, where crazy ron is. maybe we can push crazy ron over the finish line so he is not, like, the rod grahams of wisconsin, right? >> real quick on that point. >> yeah. >> but you get to a point where you can sacrifice a crazy ron if you're picking up four seats. >> exactly, right. >> you can say, you know what, just like you're seeing with pennsylvania, we're not putting the resources there. now you're down one and not doing much better in three other states. >> that's a republican loss. >> yes. >> that's a minus one for the red. >> yes. >> this is what mitch said yesterday. >> i think there's probably a greater likelihood the house flips than the senate. senate races are just different. they're statewide. candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.

>> so what he is saying there, willie, is you can't be crazy as a -- i can't even say it. kids are listening. i can't say it. we'll just say, you can't be crazy. like, when you're in a gerrymandered house district, perfect example, you can be as crazy as you want and still win comfortably. but you go statewide, suddenly, candidate quality counts. we're talking about crazy ron before, a guy that they should be able to be pouring a lot of money in to protect. this is where crazy ron -- how crazy ron is doing in wisconsin right now. i mean, the guy was actually -- things were much closer a couple months ago. we've seen all of these races shift dramatically toward the democrats. you have barnes at 50%. ron johnson at 46%. a fox news poll released yesterday. couple days ago, this poll had

barnes up 51% to 44%. that is quite a shift. then you go to arizona. arizona, mark kelly has underperformed since he's gotten into politics. we all thought that he was going to win by 12, 13 points in 2020. he just squeaked by. who did he beat? martha, um -- >> i forget. >> she was the one who yelled at the cnn reporter. >> yeah. >> mcsally. he was supposed to beat her by 10, 11, 12 points. ended up winning by 1 or 2. started slowly. lower approval ratings than kyrsten sinema. let's show it again. this is arizona. this is a state with the chaos at the southern border right now, that a republican should be ahead by 20 points. because if you don't believe the chaos at the southern border isn't causing real problems in the state of arizona, you're not paying attention. yet, kelly, pay ahead of blake masters. you could go state by state by state.

republicans underperforming in every state. because one trump pick after another trump pick, which, again, may work in the house races, doesn't work statewide. >> yeah, de-fund the fbi. jewish space lasers and that stuff might work in your district. but statewide, looking at arizona, siding with the cyber ninjas in your primary may have gotten you to the general but it is not working out so well in the election against the sitting senator mark kelly. donny deutsch, when you look across the spectrum of the races, look at herschel walker, ohio with jd vance, pennsylvania with dr. oz, who has to be regretting his decision to run for the united states senate. had a great life going. now, he is mr. crudite. what do you see on this map, and what do you hear in the comment from mitch mcconnell? >> i hear what al davis said when he was on the raiders,

"just win, baby." i think that's what's going to change everything. the rapid republican radicalism which has take over the party will still maintain its grip until, until we get to another election cycle. until we get to all of these candidates losing. there's something about -- we are a country of we like winners. we don't like losers. i think this is also going to show, the only way the republican party donald trump -- donald trump's grip loosens. the only thing that changes it is when they start to lose election after election. as long as the democrats continue to paint republicans as these rabid, radical republicans, as you talked about, as you brought in roe v. wade, de-fund the fbi, talk about not figuring out what to do with 80% of this country reduced to real gun legislation. you continue to pin those issues on them, they will lose. that is the only thing that's

going to defeat this crazy radicalism, is more losing elections. as mitch mcconnell -- who would have thought, boy, that's the voice of reason. that's the guy who gets it on the republican party. that's kind of the sane part of the party. that's the part of the party that -- the only part that's left that has any decent reasoning, he is saying it and saying the quiet part out loud. >> hey, willie, could we just look at donny for one second? tell me, is it just me, or do those glasses make him look like a character out of "oceans 11?" >> oh. >> i think that's the idea. >> maybe elliott -- >> i was angling for the brad pitt or george clooney character. >> yeah, yeah. [ laughter ] >> joe, it's donny in his -- >> my final appearance on "morning joe." i've hit rock bottom.

i mean, there is nowhere else to go. viewers, love you, 13 years, but signing off. >> i don't know, donny. willie, i'm sure there's some women out in the hamptons that think elliott gould cuts a sexy figure, right? >> it's great. donny has the tan settling in, the pastels behind him. really looking your best, donny. big weekend ahead, my friend. >> thank you, everybody. i'll be back sometime in the next ten years. it's been a great run. >> donny, do me a favor. before you come back, whiten the teeth a little lighter. by the way, we love donny, everybody. we love donny. people always go, why don't they like you? we're friends. we do that back and forth. >> because we love. >> we kid because we love. so, gene, you have the republican party now, and i go to george with this, too, but

think about it, again, we operate on such small margins. sometimes i'll talk to mika. she'll go, oh, there are too many people. i say, we operate on such small margins. we're a 50/50 country. if you lose 1% or 2% because of the attempted fascist takeover on january 6th, that's significant. >> yeah, yup. >> if you lose another percentage point because the republican party supports forcing raped 10-year-old girls to have their rapist's baby, or another state legislature is trying to pass a rarapist bill rights, where the arapist famil members can sue and get $10,000 each. if you lose another 1% because of de-funding the fbi, de-funding the most significant, most important law enforcement agency in america. you lose another 1% because they

oppose, republicans oppose any meaningful legislation to stop the crazed 18-year-old kids from walking in and getting weapons of war and gunning down little kids inside of a classroom, where police sit outside because the crazed 18-year-old kid has more firepower than all of them. you know, what was the old saying, a billion dollars here, billion dollars there. after a while, there's no more money. >> yeah. >> 1% here, 1% there. after a while, it adds up to the polls that we're seeing. >> exactly. those polls are crazy in, at this point, in the election cycle. it simply does not happen. as you said, and we will belabor this point because it is so true, the republicans should be running away with this election. this should be a layup for them. they're just -- they're blowing it. i mean, they havesenate.

we'll see, you know, we still have a ways to go before the election. but the candidates they nominated include people who just can't win a statewide election. >> yeah. >> against a normal democrat. >> they already pulled out of pennsylvania. >> exactly, which is astounding. that's a loss. that's a republican seat that they are about to lose in pennsylvania. that should be a republican seat, absolutely. >> what was saving them was gas prices at $5, $6, $7 a barrel. with gas prices coming down, on average just below $4 a barrel, that's going to hurt them, too. let's see, we don't know where it'll end up, but it look like it'll stay around this level until november. >> yeah. >> that -- >> it's the most sort of visible sign of the inflation. >> what everybody in the country was talking about. >> the damn gas prices.

>> right. >> in the end, don't people vote, you know, in significant part on who is going to make me safer? you know, who is going to make my family, my livelihood, who is going to protect it? >> right. >> and the republicans have done a really good job in saying, you're going to be safer with us. there are a lot of crazy people out there saying this and this. >> right. >> that does seem to be flipping. >> yeah. >> that does seem to be flipping. i remember '94. it is so interesting, george, and we want to talk about mar-a-lago, the search of mar-a-lago and everything. you remember all these things, just like michael. we were involved in republican politicians, 1994, two years after you had the famous quote by james carville, "it's the economy, stupid." '94, the economy was doing well. yeah, but we have radicals running washington, d.c. even with a good economy, republicans took control of the house and the senate for the first time in a generation.

here we are in 2022, and it's flipped. i mean, the economy is not doing so great in a lot of ways, but it's not the economy, stupid, right now driving these polls, it is the radicalism of a party that's making people go, whoa, whoa, wait. okay, this is -- >> right. >> whether you're talking about 18-year-old crack pots with guns, 10-year-olds being forced to have their rapist's baby, whether you're talking about threats against law enforcement officers, de-funding the fbi, a lot of people in these polls are just saying, enough. >> yeah, i mean, the republican party is -- i thought this would happen sooner, during the last few years but it didn't. the republican party is burning off potentially conservative, moderate voters who are now basically turned off by the fact the party has become a personality cult and a haven for extreme space laser type

crazies. so what's happening is, there's a double-barrel effect. the effect is, in these states, in statewide elections, they're nominating candidates that really can't win. at the same time, they're continually, you know, homogenizing the base and making the base more powerful, as these swing voters peel off. you know, they made up for it a little bit by the fact they're bringing in some, you know, hispanic voters and they brought in some voters who are low propensity voters who supported trump, but, you know, the fact is, demographics are running against the republican party. this is, you know, an older cohort that's radicalized or somewhat, you know, overinfluenced by fox news. as they grow older, they're going to become less of an influence in politics. republicans are just, you know,

they are losing the future electorate. the problem is, is that going to happen fast enough? is the implosion of the republican party going to happen fast enough that they can't do as much damage to the republic generally as they might? you know, it's a race against time in that sense. >> these attacks on the fbi are born, of course, out of last week's search warrant conducted by the fbi at mar-a-lago. the federal judge now deciding whether to unseal the affidavit about that search appeared to stake out some middle ground yesterday. saying he is inclined to unseal the affidavit. magistrate judge rhinehart gave the justice department until next thursday to submit redactions. in a written ruling, the judge stated, quote, the government has not met its burden of showing the entire affidavit should remain sealed. the judge said he would review the proposed redactions and then decide if he agrees with them. he did not give a timeline beyond next thursday, saying, quote, this is going to be a

considered, careful process. the government argued against unsealing the affidavit, claiming it'd jeopardize its investigation and because it contains, quote, substantial grand jury information with national security overtones. the justice department also indicated for the first time yesterday more than one person inside trump's orbit could be working with the government. stating, quote, the court is aware of what several witnesses said. only certain people would have that knowledge. trump again yesterday called for the full affidavit to be released without redactions, but his legal team did not final anything in the case or even participate in the hearing. let's bring in state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave aronberg. dave, good to see you again this morning. 24 hours ago, we were sitting here and you and others were saying there's no way the judge even entertains the idea of unsealing this document because of all the sensitive information inside. at least for now, though, he is saying, i'm open to unsealing

parts of it. what do you think happens here ultimately? >> willie, i think the maga world is cheering prematurely at the words the judge said yesterday. i think judge rhinehart wants to lower the temperature out there. he sees what's going on, and i think he wants people to buy into the justice system and to show that he is being even handed. he is going to review the materials, and he is acting in good faith. he's not taking an absolutist position. but it is telling that he was going to first see the proposed redactions from prosecutors. i think when you see the version of the affidavit that eventually gets released, it'll be like swiss cheese. it will be five to ten words per page you see. it'll be disjointed. you will not get the substance of the affidavit. my advice is, if you're going to try to copy the document, use jonathan lemire's copier. it'll sap all of your toner dry. it is going to be all dark paint on the page.

so here's the thing, the judge knows that if he releases this thing prematurely, it could destroy the whole case. he is a former federal prosecutor himself. though he may technically release the affidavit in substance, it'll stay sealed. >> george, are you surprised? yesterday, the consensus seemed to be, as we were going into this hearing yesterday afternoon, that the judge just couldn't unseal it because of what was inside. where do you think this ends up? >> i mean, i still think the judge can't unseal it. i think that what he is just doing here is trying to give it the old college try. try to give the appearance of openness. the fact of the matter is, it is just going to be swiss cheese. it'll be incomprehensible. we're going to see mar-a-lago is at 1100 south ocean avenue in palm beach. we're going to see that there was an fbi agent who swore to the affidavit, and his or her name will be blacked out. we will see the words "documents" followed by

paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs that are blacked out. at the end of the day, we're not -- you know, we'll see a couple references to the statutes again. shorthand for the statutes, like retaining documents willfully. we're not going to learn the facts we'd love to know, which would be, who said what to the government, and what is the chronology of the investigation? what is -- you know, how did donald trump respond? what happened at these meetings with the government? who -- did somebody lie to the government about these documents? then, you know, exactly who these witnesses are. were they former white house counsels who are designated to be the representatives to the archives? did they basically, you know, spill the beans on trump? that's all very, very interesting, but we really won't see that, in all likelihood, and trump won't see that in all

likelihood, all that material, until if and when he is indicted. >> david ignatius, we should mention, of course, news organizationsal hoping to have the affidavit unsealed, as par for the course in something like this. we know trump world is hoping to get to the bottom of who might be cooperating. we know that they, of course, would like to have their look at the road map of the investigation, to try to head it off. now, taking into account what we just heard from george and dave, that it seems unlikely that much will appear from this affidavit, that most of it will be blacked out, but speak to the level of concern. people you've talked to at the fbi and the department of justice, if anything, at all, does emerge, how worried are they? >> so they're very explicit in the filing they made to the magistrate judge, rhinehart, that they couldn't have been more clear. i want to read from the document they filed. the redactions necessary to mitigate harm would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid

of meaningful content. in other words, you'll get nothing if you go through with this redacted version. the danger with that, i think, jonathan, is that a completely redacted -- a series of pages with black lines through them allows people on the right to invent anything they want and say, that's what they're covering you. they're covering up the fact that hillary clinton, you know, she was the organizer. that's what they'll say. they can say anything think want. i think the judge here wants to do the right thing, and we in the news media, obviously, have a presumption for making as much available as possible. if it is the fact that we're just going to get a series of pages with black lines through them, that is not a meaningful document in terms of the public's understanding of this case. if the justice department is as emphatic as it was in its brief in this case, i think they will

resist, maybe even the point of appeal, any partial disclosure of the affidavit. it would, as they say, destroy their road map for the case. >> gene, it became a little clearer yesterday. first of all, we now know there's most likely more than one informant. >> exactly. >> inside mar-a-lago or inside of trump world. there's even a political campaign going on where one republican, where one republican candidate is accusing a sitting member of congress of being the informant. who is the informant? everybody is pointing at everybody right now. also, how fascinating, trump may use this to grift, may use this to raise money. >> oh, yeah. >> he sends a lawyer inside the courtroom, and she doesn't say a

word. trump doesn't want -- it's like, oh, we're going to release the footage of the fbi agents. suddenly, we hear, oh, no, you're not because there's so much you know what there. >> yes, exactly. they're not going to release it. >> it'd be horrible. i think david is right, republicans have a good reason to be worried about all of this. >> well, i do think they have a good reason to be worried about it. first of all, you know, i think i was among those who assumed the judge would basically reject the idea of even entertaining the notion of unsealing the document, the affidavit. so i don't want to assume that it is just going to be black lines, you know? he may be serious about trying to be as transparent as possible with this, to go the extra mile, because of all the conspiracy, and to demonstrate the fairness of the judicial system. so i guess i wouldn't be that

surprised. after all, that is a position our news organizations have taken, which is, you know, transparency. as a journalist, i'm for transparent is i. >> i get that. i get why "the washington post," all the other outlets would want that. but from a jurisprudence perspective, from a legal perspective, i'm just very surprised. i was surprised that the judge did what he did. because in any other case, that would not happen. you know, defense makes this motion all the time, "hey, judge, can you unseal that? let everybody see it." judge is like, "no, we're not doing that. we're not going there. no, we're not playing that today. go back, counsel, and sit down." here, the judge said, david, that, "yeah, okay. feds, put up some information." to what extent? i mean, based on your reporting,

do you think there will be massive redactions, or do you think the judge will say, "no, i'm sorry, you have to show more leg here"? i think that could be a real problem for the government, if they've got to expose more than they really want to expose here. >> i don't think they'll do it. they'll present a redacted version next thursday for the judge to look at. will that be swiss cheese, or will it be, you know, basically closed window blinds? i don't know. >> right. >> my guess is the latter. the department is pretty clear in its filing, it is not possible to redact this document. so it's conceivable we could end up having a legal challenge. the judge says, "no, i think it needs to go out," and they say, "this will destroy our road map for a sensitive investigation we think is going to take a long time to put together right." they'll challenge it, and it'll go to an appeals court.

>> why do you think the judge did that in the first place, though? >> he is trying to do what gene and i and you -- so he's saying, the attorney was speaking on behalf of the news organization and said, "judge, you stand here in the person of the american public. you're the person who has to say, we need to see what's going on here." you have people who are enraged at the fbi, saying this is all bunk. there is an obligation to say, what's this about? calm the country down. you tell people what this is really about. >> katty, even if we're not talking about the enraged republican base, there are democrats in the intel committee going, "this was an extraordinary search." you're going to have to give some information why. this is not something we're going to sit back and just wait on for the next three to four months. there are reasons why news organizations, and even democratic senators on the intel committee, along with republicans, who are saying,

"you got to show us something here." >> we had that conversation the day after the raid, about how much transparency there needed to be. exceptional transparency from the doj in this case. they waited, what was it, three days before we saw the warrant. in that three days, what happened? the conspiracy theory world got just full of crazy information that is then feeding the prospect of violence in the country. they left a vacuum open that all of the crazies jumped into as quickly as they could. now, i mean, the risk here is that there is a no-win situation. you have a document that is so redacted that, as david says, it then fuels more of the crazy conspiracies because you have a whole black page. >> mindful of the fact that the judge has read the affidavit, right? >> right. >> the judge knows what's in it. >> right. >> the judge may have some idea. now, he could hear argument from the government and from the

others, but he may have some idea of what he thinks could be appropriate. >> michael, i see you have an objection here. i'll tell you one of my concerns since the beginning, and mika's, time and time again, the media gets the leak. donald trump, you know, steals mars, says report, right? then it comes out, ends up that he picked up a rock on a beach, right? i don't know. it's an exaggeration. >> exactly. >> but when your first leak has nuclear secrets in it, right, could they have just said it was top secret? but this is what has been happening for five or six years. as mika and i were saying, there's the overreach. a source says, you know, there are nuclear secrets here, so you write "nuclear secrets," it's the headlines. then it ends up being something bad, but trump comes in and beats expectations. suddenly, it's a witch hunt. so that's, again, if there are

nuclear secrets in here, i mean, maybe they don't need to tell us that. but you know the sourcing, that does nobody any favors but donald trump. if we're kept in the dark, then three months later, comes up being an example of overclassification, well, my gosh, it plays right into trump's hands and right into the conspiracy theory's hands. >> i got that, but can we take a reality check here? it doesn't matter what it is, it's going to be playing into that conspiracy theory. if they had dropped it the very same day, what do you think trump world would have said? what do you think they're going to do? oh, okay, well, you got the president. the reality of it is -- >> you are seeing some throwback from republicans saying, hold on. those first few days with the de-fund the fbi, attack the fbi, actually, maybe that went a little bit far. i think, you know, mike pence possibly saying, "actually,

shooting fbi agents is not the best thing. let's hold off on that." >> please, let's not act like that is, you know, coursing through the veins of republican rooms around washington, d.c., right now. i mean, yeah, mike pence said something, but where is the rest of the leadership? they're not standing in front of a bank of microphones saying that. >> yeah. >> so the reality of it is, the play going to be the play, folks. understand this, it doesn't matter what the government does. donald trump and his ilk are going to twist it, contort it, abuse it, lie about it, confuse it at every turn. you can drop it in this moment, and five minutes later, there's going to be an ugly narrative about it, twisted and contorted, regardless. >> yeah. >> so is this because it is donald trump and a president who has been caught committing crimes that we are still sitting

here, oh, it's the president. this is not george washington here. this is not ronald reagan. this is a president that the country has seen for what he is. we still try to treat him like he's like those other presidents. so if he is engaging in this behavior, if he puts himself -- these are his actions. he took the documents. we didn't take them. he took them. so all of a sudden, there are laws that say you can't do that. >> yeah. >> any one of you grab a document from across the street and see what happens. >> what's so fascinating is, like, the hypocrisy. if any member of congress right now had taken one of those documents, the fbi would be knocking at their door by the end of the day, and it would not be good. >> yeah. >> that is the rank hypocrisy of the members of congress right

now, defending trump, when they would be in jail for take one box. >> know who will be dancing around whether or not you're going to release the affidavit? we ain't releasing anything. trial is set, let's go. >> you know what every other republican is saying? that guy is an idiot. what was he thinking? >> right. >> why did he think he could get away with it. willie, this is a fascinating discussion about some of donald trump's legal problems. but, wait, there's more. yes, i would add to the hypocrisy, by the way, this is a group of republicans who spent the entire 2016 presidential campaign chanting that hillary clinton should literally be put in prison for having a private server at her home in new york. that's a different topic. if your point, former trump organization cfo allen weisselberg now pleaded guilty to a number of criminal charges tied to his indictment in a sweeping tax fraud case. in court yesterday, weisselberg admitted to collecting more than $1.7 million in off the books

compensation. including free rent, school tuition, and multiple mercedes automobiles. he agreed to pay nearly $2 million in taxes and fines and serve five months in jail. as part of the plea deal, weisselberg is expected to testify at the trump organization's upcoming trial this fall. he is not expected to implicate his former boss, though. donald trump himself is not charged with any wrongdoing, but prosecutors have noted he did sign some of the checks at the center of yesterday's case. george conway, help our viewers make sense of the significance of this. first of all, allen weisselberg's relationship with donald trump well predates donald trump's career in politics. he's been his right-hand man for decades now. >> 40 years. >> what's the significance of that case yesterday? >> well, i mean, the point, the overall point i'd make about what's happening in new york is the criminal case is less now important than the civil case. we've known it since the

resignation of the prosecutors handing the case. mark pomeranz and dunn resigned after the new district attorney took over. the d.a., i'm reading between the lines, decided he didn't want to go forward with a big case against the trump organization and donald trump for tax fraud, insurance fraud, and bank fraud, without flipping weisselberg. they didn't flip weisselberg, at least on that stuff. they flipped him only on the small stuff that they have been indicted him and the trump organization on. that's still significant. he's going to the trial in the fall. it'll be embarrassing to the trump organization. trump, you know, is sort of, to some extent, the trump organization. but it is not going to put him in jail. that said, there is the continued civil investigation being conducted by the attorney general of the state of new york. you'll remember, it is easy to forget, after everything that happened last week, think it was last wednesday, donald j. trump

pled the fifth amendment 440 times in a civil deposition in that civil investigation. you know, you can use pleading -- he's not the only member of his family and a member of the trump organization who has pled the fifth. you can use all of that in a civil case to infer that fact and infer basically a liability or guilt in a civil case. under the martin act, which is this broad, anti-fraud statute that new york has, that could be the basis for charges against the trump organization, for fraud, insurance fraud, bank fraud, tax fraud, what have you, the trump organization could get hammered. i mean, they've already lost their accountants months ago. i viewed that as kind of the beginning of the end of the trump organization. you need financial statements to

borrow money. he's got hundreds of millions of dollars he needs to refinance. i mean, he's in deep trouble still. even if he doesn't -- even if he doesn't have criminal exposure in the state of new york. >> so, dave aronberg, i ask why somebody with 15 or so felonies got such a light sentence, and it seems a lot of tax experts believe these charges are pretty thin gruel. it's a great example, when people started talking about the trump organization, oh, the criminal charges, oh, they're going to get weisselberg, and, oh, it is going to be so bad. he is going to turn on -- he is going to turn on trump. then here we are at the end, and it's, you know, they didn't pay income tax on, like, car rentals or -- i don't mean to undermine it. he broke the law. there's no doubt about it. but here's another great example of the media saying, oh, it's just going to melt down the entire trump organization, and

he is going to go to prison for life. he is going to have to testify against donald trump. doesn't turn out that way. didn't turn out that way in this case. >> joe, i have to admit, i bought into it, too. i thought donald trump was going to be indicted in new york. i think had cyrus vance jr. continued to serve as district attorney in manhattan, he probably would have. after all, this was his legacy issue. he chased donald trump to the supreme court twice to get his taxes. then he retired. alvin brag took over and didn't feel there was evidence to pursue the case. it's his name on the bottom line, so i get it. i thought the case against weisselberg was strong. they had two separate sets of books, like "the producers." one said, show to the irs. the other was, don't show to the irs. [ laughter ] >> that's pretty -- go ahead. >> well, you know, in the end, this plea deal does embolden james' civil case against the

trump organization. now, weisselberg can testify without fifth amendment protection because the criminal case is over. he will be her star witness. if you think that a civil case doesn't matter, just ask ivanka and the trump foundation, which is no more because of a civil action filed by attorney general tish james. >> donny deutsch, i'm sure you hear this an awful lot, i hear it an awful lot, donald trump always gets away with it. he is the rolo tomasi of american politics. he is the guy that always gets away with it. in america, no man is above the law, except donald trump. just curious, are you still hearing that from people? do you personally believe that donald trump is ever going to see justice for, hell, why don't we just start on january 6th, for being at the center of a

fascist riot to overthrow legal election results? >> look, i probably get that question asked more than anything. people are usually asking with their hands up. they're never going to get this guy. how does he get away with it? why is he the only one that gets away with it? there is a wear out factor. there's so much of it, that each drop in the bucket has less significance. i do believe that, in the end, january 6th will be his undoing. they were never going to take down this president on, unfortunately, as any other citizen would be taken down, on an insurance fraud situation or back fraud situation. i do think that, as the january 6th investigation goes deeper and deeper and deeper, i think, somehow, in there, in that bucket, we'll finally see the tipping point. today it hasn't happened. no, there is just something that is incredulous. one after the other after the other. but i do think, somehow, i

believe this -- maybe i'm an optimistic idiot who looks like elliott gould with glasses on -- but i believe at some point, something with january 6th comes forward and will, somewhere, tie it up in there, and they'll finally get this guy. >> can i ask you one final question, donny? is it true, do all the saves connect in a tunnel underneath the bellagio? if so, how do we crack it? >> they really do. i will never wear these glasses again. >> okay, thank you so much. [ laughter ] >> he looks lovable, likable. going to be a good weekend in the hamptons. you took those glasses off, donny. >> joe, by the way, segment coming on at 9:45. hampton diaries, every friday on ""morning joe." we go through the social scene in the hamptons, talk about who is up, who is down. hampton diaries, 9:45.

>> crudite. >> of course, crudite, exactly. willie, i think we're making history this morning. >> yeah, donny has an important decision to make. is it nick and tony, the pom, the stone tonight? we'll let him work on that important decision. looking here, joe, at the ten box, this is a rare moment. i've been on the phone the last hour or so with the "morning joe" historian, jon meacham, in nashville. he's been shuffling through old tapes. this is only the second time in the history of our show that we've had the ten box. five over five. i figure, as long as we're here, we can play pickup basketball. you and i are captains. i'll take katty with the first pick. >> smart choice, willie, as ever. as ever. >> good ball handler. >> no doubt about it. all right. very good. history is made. we're so glad, willie, again, that donny took his glasses off.

>> no, i like the glasses. donny, thanks. have a good weekend. george conway, dave aronberg, thanks to you, as well. still ahead on "morning joe," we will speak with one florida attorney who turned down former president trump's request to join his legal team for the mar-a-lago search defense. plus, nbc's tom costello will join us with a new warning from the administration to airlines. improve your service or pay the price. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. republicans in congress call them "entitlements." a "ponzi scheme." the women and men i served with in combat, we earned our benefits. just like people earned their social security and medicare benefits. but republicans in congress have a plan to end so-called "entitlements" in just five years. social security, medicare, even veterans benefits. go online and read the republican plan for yourself. joe biden is fighting to protect social security,

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7:50 in the morning here on the east coast. nbc news has learned the department of transportation is issuing a ultimatum to airlines,

the plan could order changes. and tom costello joins us now from reagan national airport. and you spoke about this new order with transportation secretary pete buttigieg. tell us about it. >> reporter: that is right. well, as you know, hundreds of thousands of passengers have been inconvenienced this summer and now the secretary is saying if the airlines don't up their game, stop overpromising and meet schedules and provide good customer service and clarity on their services then the government will proceed with a plan to do it for them. if you have flown this summer there is a good chance you've got a story and a complaint. >> it is chaos and i hope people have a better time than we're havele. >> reporter: in the first six months of the year, 24% of u.s. flights were delayed, 3.2% canceled. while violent weather and air traffic control problems contributed. the department of transportation said the airlines bear most of

the blame, for overscheduling flights despite not having enough pilots. and then offering conflicting and confusing rules on cash refunds and voucher policies. >> three times in the last few weeks i've been canceled. >> reporter: pete buttigieg said the confusion needs to end now. >> the message to the airline is that you've got to make it easier for passengers to understand there rights and you've go to support passengers when they experience delays or cancellations. >> reporter: in a new letter to the airlines, secretary buttigieg writes the level of disruption the americans have experienced this summer is unacceptable. he wants airlines to refund and offer meal vouchers if a domestic flight is delayed more than 3 hours and provide hotel reservations if a passenger has to wait overnight. >> you're calling on the airlines to meet the regulations or you're going to do it for them. >> that is right. i'm giving them the opportunity to raise the bar.

>> they said they comply with federal laws and regulations regarding cash refunds and care yours strive to provide the highest level of customer service. but two weeks ahead of labor day, travel pros suggest always having a back-up plan if things go wrong. >> know what is in included in your ticket. if you could proactively move your flight around, if you have a refundable ticket, a ticket with no change fees, move to earlier in the day, potentially leave the day early. >> reporter: secretary buttigieg tells me, by the way, that the d.o.t. has received record numbers of complaints about the airlines. and d.o.t. said it is so confusing on refunds and vouchers so the d.o.t. is going to roll out a website spelling out what each individual airline policy is, on delays and refunds and vouchers and that will roll

out labor day weekend. hopefully a little bit of clarity on one-stop shopping there, willie. >> that is a start. but it is brutal out there this summer. tom costello, thank you so much. joe, it is been a long time since commercial air travel was a pleasant experience, but it is certainly gotten much worse this year and by the time you get to the airport, your braced for battle with your kids and all of your luggage and everything else and you feel for the flight attendant, the gate agents drawing the ire of people who are just caught up in this miss of a system. >> it is just an absolute, it is a disgrace. and the small government conservative is weary when a federal government tells private industry what they have to do. but if we give private industries billions and billions of dollars in bailouts and they use that time and that opportunity to get rid of pilots and get rid of flight attendants, enough. we need to go in and we need to be strong and tell the airlines,

you're going to have to start paying your people more and you're going to have to start been or things will get tough really fast. >> you find people angrier in airports trying to navigate the system which is broken, underfunded. and then you see them almost anywhere in the country and you're absolutely right, we bailed out the airlines. kept them afloat during covid for a reason. so they would be around when we came back. this summer everybody wants to get out and travel. god bless them. they want to see their relatives and travel on vacation, and it is a nightmare flying on airlines, i mentioned flying with my dad who is 101 years old in this environment is just -- it just shouldn't happen. that you have no idea if you're canceled, delayed. i kid you not, a tornado coming into washington, d.c. because they didn't want to reroute the

plane. so enough. it is time for the airlines to give back. we gave them a lot. time to give back. >> yeah. they've got to do it and it keep getting worse. we're talking about taking people on vacations and heard the stories this summer. i have and i know other people have. but what about people that work and have to be traveling three, four days a week. it is impossible for them. so it is not just about people being stuck because of a vacation. it is about people being able to get their work done and having no choice. it really is disgraceful. and just because things make it a little better in the fall, not good enough. because in the end, you have the holiday season and kidsing to get home from college and they have to fix it and be strong in do itting. coming up, a lawyer who led through the mueller investigation is now calling the former president a disaster. a disaster for the republican

party. and this guy has the cred and the mustache to pull it off. we're going to have his comments on trump and the big lie. speaking of the big lie, there are real consequences of the conspiracy happening right now on the local level. election officials are resigning after receiving one death threat after another. also the biden administration's new move to combat monkeypox as the virus reaches a state of emergency in parts of the country. we'll be right back.

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just not being able to throw the first pitch for a strike. albert hits it out to deep left. it is gone! it is a grand slam. 690, off the bench. pujols, it is a grand slam. >> that is retiring cardinals slugger albert pujols hitting his 690th home run of his career

in grand style. it was his 16th grand slam. first pitch as a pinch-hitter and it moves him into a tie with hank aaron, dave ruth and dave kingman for tenth most all time. we're going to play that for claire mccaskill. she joins us now also at the table in washington. we have co-founder of axios michael allen and politics reporter for "the washington post" and author of the daily newsletter, the five minute fix, amber phillips and katty kay and michael steele still with us in the position. >> he tried to leave. >> we're just starting. >> he was up and the out of the door. >> we're here. rock and roll. >> you want to hear something frightening. we're only half through. >> i've been doing this for two hours. >> exactly. and they may at 10:00 tell us we have to do another four.

you told mika and me a couple of years ago when you had to do the show three days in a row, you said you're officially criminally insane. you weren't awake for three weeks after, were you? >> i have to sleep for a week. >> joe, i was sitting out there next to a monitor where for the whole show i heard only you. >> oh, no. >> it is like the manning cast, and you ate your wheaties today. this is a full contact show. >> it is great being around human beings, right? it's fantastic. we have like 47 people here and willie, we have 47 people up in new york and we have claire mccaskill. >> we have 12 box coming up. >> and then we're going to break records today. but how about pujols, pretty exciting stuff and what a way for him to finish his career. >> claire, your first place st. louis cardinals looking good

here leading the brewers by three games as we sit here. and pujols is like our age. i haven't played in 30 years and he's still out here hitting grand slams at his age. he's just incredible, claire. >> he ended up with five rbis on the day for the oldest man playing major league baseball. and you can imagine how much fun the st. louis fans are having. yesterday we fielded three of the five oldest players, wainwright pitched and yadi was behind the plate, as a pitcher and catcher how many games they've been together. this could end up being a special season for the cardinals. we've hopeful. we've had a lot of special seasons. but these three guys are making the young players rise to the game and we have a lot of good young players. so it is so much fun. >> it is. and willie, we look also, we've

been following "the new york times" and the yankees and the mets lost last night. that means less to the yankees than it does the mets. the braves won't stop winning. and by the way, just one correction, you may be pew hole's age, i'm closer to william shatner's age. thank you so much for lopping me in. >> i tried, joe. >> you tried. >> listen -- just went into outer space, so you have a lot ahead of him. >> and released an album. >> yes. >> if you haven't listened to william shatner sing lucy in the sky with diamonds, go to spotify right now. but shatner, he turns 90 and they say what have you figured out over your nine decades. just relax, because nothing really matters. okay. very good. and with that, let's go to the

possible prosecution of a former president of the united states, willie. >> a smooth transition, joe. let's start with the federal judge in florida asking the justice department to prepare a redacted version of the affidavit that led to the search warrant for donald trump's mar-a-lago estate. that decision marking more of a middle of the road approach than many expects and the judge saying it is very important for the public to have access to as much information as possible. this all comes after the former trump organization cfo allen weisselberg pled guilty to 15 counts of tax fraud in a different case. so many brock has the latest. >> reporter: this morning fresh reaction to a ruling few were expecting. a federal judge dolling out a modest victory for president trump and the media. >> it is not the government's job to tell the public what is meaningful in terms of the release of its own information. >> reporter: giving the doj a week to offer redactions before

he considers releasing portions of the affidavit attached to the mar-a-lago search. judge reinhart, saying it should be fully sealed calling that the public have as much access to information as possible and lawyers said it would provide a road map to where the investigation is headed next and jeopardize the safety of investigations. while news organizations including nbc news sought transparency, chuck to be inteling the court, you could not trust what you cannot see. for trump it is all about exposing what he calls a political witch hunt with his spokesperson tweeting, no reaction should be necessary and the whole affidavit should be released. yet in court, his attorney didn't present any argument, simply observing. nor did trump's team file any papers asking the judge to make the affidavit public. >> if he believed it was abusive, he has an easy remedy. file a lawsuit, countless are file all of the time to say this search violated my fourth

amendment and he hasn't done that. >> allen weisselberg pleading guilty to 15 counts of trax fraud. he's agreed to testify against the trump organization at a later date but not his former boss. >> weisselberg decided that he would rather be a convicted felon than snitch against a former president. >> reporter: trump still navigating a host of legal challenges from new york to florida. that only appear to be deepening. >> sam brock reporting there. so claire, what do you make of the judge's decision yesterday to say everybody take a week and redact what you think you need to react from this affidavit and then he believe that's at least parts of it should in fact be unsealed. we talked to george conway in the last hour and said this is not particularly surprising. he wants to be seen as fair and giving the trump attorneys a chance at least here to have some of this brought out into the public. how do you think it ends up? is this the swiss cheese as george described it, as pages

and pages of redactions? >> i can't imagine that the public is going to get a lot of context with the document that actually is made public. i'm assuming that the judge will, in fact, allow a lot of redactions, especially around things that impact national security and around some of the witnesses. it clearly are in trump world and we know from one of the 1/6 committee all of the witnesses were trump world. and i'm sure that is the case here. and i know the trump organization is anxious to get ahold of the snitches. what is most important about yesterday, and this is what the maga world really needs to get comfortable with, donald trump did not ask for this to be unsealed. his lawyer was right there. i'm pretty sure she has a law degree. i'm pretty sure she could appear in court there. i'm pretty sure she could have filed a motion. along with news organizations. the ome people arguing for this affidavit to be released in court where you make those

arguments are news organizations, not donald trump. i don't think donald trump -- i think he likes the idea of claiming he wants it open, it is like he's got the video of them doing the search, he hasn't released that. he had the inventory of what they took, he didn't release that. he's trying to have it both ways and i wish that people who follow him, so slavishly would get a clue here. he doesn't want that released or his lawyer would have said so in court. >> amber, let me ask you, we have been talking this morning about several different cases that donald trump's lawyers are having to juggle right now. what do you think is the most legally precarious for him? >> step back and try to think about this because there is a lot going on and it is all heating up right now. i think we're right to be talking about this mar-a-lago raid. a lot. and that's because the fbi agents had to go out there and spell examples of crimes they think trump or his allies committed in trump's residence. and a judge agreed that there is

possible cause. i mean, it is right there. this is pretty serious. now the question that i have and legal experts have that i talk to have said is, did the fbi just want the documents badly enough to go in there and get them and then they're done. or do they think there was some kind of misuse and yesterday's hearing i thought in court, reading a little bit of the tea leaves underscored that the fbi and the justice department are concerned that something nefarious going on. there is still an ongoing case. we'll mess up our prosecution if we keep this going. that is the number one case to follow and after that there is another justice department investigation into january 6, that has hundreds of defendants and they're looking into president trump's words and actions regarding the electoral college votes and we could talk more about that in a minute.

but it is a big one. >> and we have weisselberg as well. >> this has to be making trump crazy because he's thinking about who around him is talking to others, who is throwing him under the bus, and joe, you know this, allen weisselberg was the inner sanctum, in trump tower, where he was such a pack rat, that maybe got him in trouble. but that office just crammed with papers, souvenirs, the model of the trump shuttle which was once a thing and the team and weisselberg was in the middle of that. how many sets of books there were, weisselberg has 100% visibility of that. >> hes would -- he was working for the trump administration for 50 years. >> i don't know why everyone thought that of all of the people, that he would be the ones to give over the goods. i never thought allen

weisselberg would flip on trump. it is just too much history there. this man has been taken care of by trump. he is taken care of trump. and of all the relationships, as i've looked at this, that trump has, that one mattered the most to him. >> he has to testify against the organization. >> against the organization. >> and not against donald trump, right. >> but his name is over the door. >> his name is over the door. but in terms of this, as we were talking about in the last hour, this wholesale using folks like weisselberg to sort of get at trump, the big prosecution, you know. and he's going to deliver the goods. that was never something that would happen. five months, that is what we're talking about. all of this is five months. >> and you talk about the organization, you talk about trump's office and you walk into trump's office or at least before he was president of the united states, you walk in and you realize that there may be

this gold plated building and it may look like it is big organization, it is a mom and pop operation. >> with michael cohen in a little cubicle. >> and it is all trump making all of the decisions, putting his kids in there to make all of the decisions. that is what it was like. so are we to believe that weisselberg was like you know what i think i'm going to do without telling donald, i'm going to have two sets of books. no, he would never do that in a million years. because you could tell walking into the office that nobody did anything unless donald trump was the one telling them what to do. >> it wasn't np organization where delegation was the strong point in terms of making decisions. he may have not wanted to do the work but the maimer decisions were made by donald trump and it was a shoe string operation with these guys and he knew everything and weisselberg knows exactly what trump knew, too. but you didn't mention, georgia,

and i've also heard from other people, from legal experts saying that their watching georgia most closely and it is moving very fast. why do you not put that out there. >> i think that was number three on my list. but katy if you asked me before this fbi raid, what is most legally precarious, i would have said georgia. it is the only criminal probe related to the fraud for trump and then we have the filing of the espionage act in some way, it doesn't necessarily mean spying and we have reporting in july from washington post that said they're looking, the justice department at donald trump's action and words and how he orchestrated giuliani for this fake elector's scheme. and i think you could make a case that the fake electors scheme precipitated the violence and could have been something they set up for the january 6 attack. i think you're right to focus on georgia. it is a criminal probe and the district attorney down there

fannie willis has a lot more political room to move than the justice department and she's proven pretty creative in the way she charges other people in her career. >> by the way, amber. >> go ahead. i thought i heard something. >> another great washington post story this week about how trump can't get a lawyer. like all of the experienced federal lawyers that he's trying to get, he needs new experience. he knows this is a massive high stakes fight with the justice department. but everybody is turning him down. finally. >> mike, there is a pause there for a second. willie, when mike was talking, mike was talking and then he stopped and said wait a second, i just made a lot of money this week. maybe i'll buy a private jet. the private jet is going to be called willie here. >> i'm honored. i hope it lasts longer than the

trump shuttle you just mentioned. we'll see. let's talk about more commentary. we talked about people willing to represent donald trump and others would are not right now. one of his former lawyers acknowledged the former president is not good for republicans. you might remember ty cobb. he served from 2017 to 2018 in the trump white house where he led the internal response to the mueller investigation, defending the president. when asked by nbc in july about the impact and early announcement of a presidential run could have on the republican party, cobb responded are a statement that reads in part, trump is a disaster for the republican party for which he prevented a senate majority in 2020, and as time will demonstrate has already done the same for 2022 with his endorsements of unelectable candidates all based on their loyalty or his own driving desire for revenge. the big lie has been good ome for trump and brought him millions in donations which some evidence suggs may have been

mishandled. the big lie and election interference and perceived misconduct was and is an affront to this nation and the principles. it is permanently soiled the abyss that divides our country and continues to expand due to the delusions and lack of accountability of politicians in both parties. it should be disqualifying for trump and his political accolades, than at any other time in our history to modify a well-known seinfeld quote, sanity now. wow. tell us how you really feel ty cobb. that is the man who defended donald trump in the white house during the mueller investigation. >> and claire, you actually have mitch mcconnell who for the first time is starting to talk about the poor quality of the candidates. he was subtle about it. but talking about the poor quality of the candidates that donald trump is endorsing in georgia and arizona and pennsylvania and in ohio. i mean, they've already,

republicans yesterday word around town, they've given up on dr. oz. i mean, if you would have just gone for the $7.99 veggie tray, with wrap, he would be doing fine now. you look at herschel walker in georgia and look at this arizona poll. and when i say -- when i say this, i'm not picking on anybody. but the democratic candidate there, the democratic senator there has had a history, mark kelly, of at times underperforming. he underperformed in the final tally in 2020. he won but by 10 points less than people expected and got off to a rough start. but, you know, all you need is something like blake masters that trump gets behind and suddenly he's looking like, you know, a very powerful figure and in a state where a large number of the republican base have

clearly lost their minds. eight points there. you go -- you go to wisconsin. this is to do with crazy ron. barnes up by four points in the fox news poll and then go to the marquette poll which is a gold standard there, one that we follow, and it is 7 points. barnes is 7 points there. dr. oz, no telling how much dr. oz is going to lose by but i suspect he'll probably lose by more points than homes that he has across the world. and he has ten homes across the world. so, he's facing an uphill battle there and mitch mcconnell knows he's facing an uphill battle to retain the senate because they just keep getting crazier. >> yeah. i mean, i really think there is a couple of races that we haven't talked a lot about that are very telling. one is in your state. the fact that marco rubio has -- there is now a poll that has val

demings ahead of marco rubio and desantis up by 6.5. they act like he's the second coming. he can't even get a ten point lead and marco rubio is in big trouble. i don't think anybody expects marco rubio to be in trouble. he is. and look at north carolina. nobody is talking about north carolina. you have a relatively normal republican, not a crazy person like peter teal backed blake masters or dr. oz can't figure out what he owns or that you don't serve tequila with raw asparagus. that should be a felony. >> go ahead, i'm sorry. >> in north carolina, you have a dead tie with a very strong democratic candidate who is won statewide before. sherry beasley and a supreme court justice against a guy named bud.

and look at ohio. nobody expected ohio to be as competitive as it is. this is turning out to be mitch mcconnell's nightmare if the democrats can motivate the base, which i think the mass shootings in schools and especially with the supreme court has done and how the republicans have responded to it, do not underestimate the turnout that could occur because of the anger over the extreme laws that these republicans are trying to put in place all across the country right now to make rape victims and incest victims have mandatory forced births. >> you're clearly amongst democrats feeling they are in a much better place today than they were even a month ago. and there have been a whole confluence of things that have happened in the past month that have made them think, maybe this is not as disastrous for us as we thought it was going to be. we're still in august. with the caveat the election is in november and things could change until then. this summer bump may not last as

long as they think it is going to. but talk about the house. how is what we've seen play out in the senate reflected in the house or is it not reflected in the house, is it it down to the candidates who is in the senate seem to be too extreme or whacky and not now how much vegetables should cost or what supermarket they're even in, in the first place. it is down to that. or is there something broader and are you seeing it play out in the house as well. >> i think time will tell about the house. that is a good question, katy. the senate, mitch mcconnell was right when he said it is candidates. it is a state wide race. the house is so much more nationalized and nationally you look at voters who are still pessimistic about how much groceries and rent costs. so i've heard nancy pelosi say i think we're going to keep the house. i think she's getting way ahead of her skis but i think there are instance where's democrats feel there are races where

they're like, oh, we could hold on to that. >> doing better than they thought. >> i get the vibe that nancy is coming from. there are a lot of dynamics right now, mike, that you guys are writing about for sure that said there is a bubble out there. there is something that bubbling up in the political life of communities, particularly in the suburbs of america. how are you looking at just straight on going into labor day, coming off the summer where everybody thinks that nobody was paying attention to the january 6 committee hearings. they were. no one was following the ebbs and flows of what was going on in states around the country on tough legislation, anti-women legislation, they were. how do you see republicans responding in the vain of a

mitch mcconnell that are concerned about, we have some real problems with candidates out here. how are voters picking up on that. >> michael, may i still call you mr. chairman out of habit. but i think you have a lot of republicans that are worried that the house we talked about, oh, is the red wave a supertsunami, a tsunami, like republicans are now worried that that is going to be much closer. people don't think -- >> can they self-correct? i keep asking, most political parties are able to self-correct. can they not self-correct? >> there is so much concern about, a., like how much of a difference is roe going to make. is that going to turn people out. a lot of concern about trump announcing. republicans want to talk about one thing, and inflation. that is it. and -- >> and inflation is ticking down. >> right. >> and then 17 states are passing abortion bans. like really strict ones. >> so the way, when it first

broke, i thought it was, this is alabama or mississippi and suddenly it is wisconsin. there are other states. >> the conversation is getting away from republicans. >> could i ask. and i'll follow up on something, joe, it made me think about kansas. did republicans really respond to kansas? i mean, what was the back room conversations that you were hearing because i know i was hearing was like, oh, my god. >> well you're in the back room so we'll play along. but the top line of kansas where there was a strong vote for abortion rights protections, but the back room conversation is the turnout and the fact that it was everywhere in the state. and books have been written about kansas as like one of our most conservative states and if you're going to get that kind of turnout, that kind of breadth and depth in kansas, it means that it is a problematic issue

for republicans in a lot of places they weren't watching. >> michael allen of axios, thank you for being with us and amber phillips of "the washington post," greatly appreciated and claire mccaskill. go cards. >> go cards. >> thank you so much. >> thanks. >> willie. >> thanks, claire. still ahead this morning, we'll speak to a lawyer who turned down president trump's request to join his legal team and the biden administration announced a new summit to counter of corrosive effect of hate filled violence on our democracy and public safety. we'll go live to the white house for that new reporting. and also ahead, a look at growing numbers of threats coming from republicans against fbi agents, irs agents and election poll workers. plus it has become the show addressing the opioid epidemic, the crowator of "dope sick." danny strong will join us to talk about the way the show has turned him from a writer to an

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yesterday i talked about how the republicans were putting targets on the backs of irs agents. and lying about what is supposedly in this bill that just became law. and they are all lies. and then that of course goes on top of what happened with fbi agents. the fbi worried about unprecedented threats. and as i'm saying that yesterday, i have a good friend who is an election official, a republican his whole life, i don't think he's ever voted for a democratic presidential candidate in his life, immediately texted me during the show and he goes, hey, what about election officials. we're all getting death threats if we don't buy into conspiracy theories. and sure enough, news out of texas, three election officials

have just said enough. we're tired of the death threats. we didn't sign up for this. we're quitting. and so, it is not an overstatement to say that the republican party is putting in danger the lives of many great americans who just want to serve their government. and these lies especially about the irs agents, so reckless and irresponsible. just like the fbi agents. and i know mitch mcconnell understands, that is part of the problem too. he's got one of the most senior members of the united states senate saying that the irs is coming to homes in iowa with ar-15s and fox news hosts saying their coming with ar-15s to kill middle class americans. it is -- this is -- this is, you

know, it is like 11:30 and oklahoma city is at 12:00. these people are leading us to a very dangerous, dark place where federal employees and state employees and they are going to get killed if they don't stop with their rhetoric. >> it is an unforgivable lie because it is so easily disproven and has been, obviously there are 80,000 new irs agents. there are not. that is a whole thing we'll get into later. that was a projection from the treasury department last year on something else. but they're certainly not carrying ar-15s and kicking in the doors of small business owners and making them pay their taxes or worse if you listen to some of the people. and you're right, they're laying the groundwork. it may get them ratings or keep them in power in their district but their setting the table for

violence in this country and they don't care. and when this day comes and god forbid i hope it doesn't, blood will be on their hands. there is no question. >> i know this all sounds mellow dramatic until you have the head of the fbi saying we're facing unprecedented threats. and people that i've known my entire life are texting me and talking about replacing the u.s. government, talking about civil war. and you go, what is wrong with you. and they say the irs agents are coming with ar-15s and they're coming to our doors and they're going to kill us. or they're saying that the fbi is coming to raid our house and take our guns away from us. these are the lies that have been spread, not by -- this is what is so disturbing, not by back benchers, these lies have been spread by chuck grassley, by kevin mccarthy, by top news hosts at fox news.

this is not info wars. this is mainstream pro-trump rhetoric and they're deliberately trying to get americans to a position of where they'll do harm to irs agents. can you imagine? can you imagine? i just want to say, do i have the quote here. i think i saved the quote in my ipad. you could imagine chuck grassley talking about the irs having a strike force, quote, that goes in with ar-15s already loaded, ready to shoot, some small business people. a top fox news host saying, that the irs is coming to, quote, hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers. irs coming to hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers. i want to give that to -- that

we are talking people who are deliberately trying to gin up a civil war and their followers are actually going along with it. and i know this because they're my family members and they're life long republicans and there are people who used to be reagan conservatives. talking about civil war. and a guy that you and i both have known for a long time and i'm not saying his name, telling me very, very smugly a couple of days ago, well you know the u.s. government is not sacrosanct, they could be replaced. >> it is incredible that we've gotten to this point. one of our two major parties is now an angry populous, anti-government party. it's members are aroused by the idea that the government is the enemy. they talk about fbi officers who served in the line of fire, as government gangsters. >> the gestapo.

>> the corrupt cops. these are the people who for generations, since i could remember the fbi, were defended primarilily republicans. it was liberals that criticized the fbi. now we have a company that wants to take apart this administrative apparatus of our country and this is scary because this group, this poll you'llist moving taking over the republican party seems to believe in intimidation. if we frighten you, we'll back you up. they've learned that over the last few years. the only hope, we've talked about this so often on this show, lies with sensible republicans. people like the ones that we've seen in the january 6 hearings. the republicans who stood up, former attorney general bill barr, pat cipollone, a whole list of other people who at considerable personal risk stood up and said what trump was doing was not right.

i abide it. i won't abide it. and the republican state elected officials around the country, the people in georgia running this investigation, who said we won't do it. who stood up to the intimidators. if those people begin to buckle then we're really in trouble. >> we're going to take a quick break, but everybody stay put. we want to continue this conversation as we bring in attorney george conway to weigh in on the escalating rhetoric about the irs and the fbi. "morning joe" is coming right back. back the unknown is not empty. it's a storm that crashes, and consumes, replacing thought with worry. but one thing can calm uncertainty. an answer. uncovered through exploration, teamwork, and innovation.

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with xfinity mobile. or add a line to your plan today at xfinitymobile.com what i want to know is, michael steele, what would it cost pat toomey, what would it cost rob portman, what would it cost mitt romney to hold a press

conference and tamp down this rhetoric and to call out the rhetoric that is calling our law enforcement officers the gestapo and spreading lies about the irs that has reached the mainstream of the republican party that irs agents are coming to ar-15s to households in middle america to shoot business owners. >> nothing would stop them. >> why aren't they doing them? >> because they don't want the backlash. they don't want the noise inside of the republican caucus from hot heads who will remind them, look -- >> do they want oklahoma city? >> they don't believe oklahoma city will happen. >> they've already had -- they've had the possibility of it in ohio. >> oh, i know. but that is the problem. >> they already had it on january 6. >> look at the ark. not just in the past. this is a narrative that has been a part of the republican conversation on these issues

since trump. they don't want to put themselves at risk. even while they're leaving office, even while they are stepping down from the job they cannot in this moment go to a bank of microphones and say this is wrong. >> it is wrong for fox news host to say that the irs is coming to, quote, hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers. >> right. >> they can't say that, katy, when one of their colleagues talk about a strike force going in with ars ready to shoot some business person in iowa. they can't do a press conference and say that is reckless rhetoric, if we have issues with the irs, we will take it up in committee. that is what we used to do. if we thought that the fbi overstepped or didn't go far enough, we would have them go before the relevant committees and have hearings. and by the way, as willie brought up yesterday, the irs have had guns since 1919.

the irs had guns when donald trump was president and they never said one damn thing. >> you had mike pence come out in new hampshire saying that the attacks on the fbi agents have to stop. he did actually go as far as to say the maga -- he doesn't use the term, but he was speaking clearly to the maga crowd who have gotten riled up since the raid on the search of mar-a-lago and he did come out. but you need a lot more senior republicans to come out, if only to defend the agents and the irs agents and the election workers who are now feeling under threat. i spent a day with an election worker, conservative woman, in georgia who had had to move her vehicle from its parking place in the parking lot in front of her window because the fbi were warning her that she could be hit by a bomb and the vehicle could stop the blast of the bomb from breaking her window and hurting her inside. her husband was to frightened by the threats she was getting that

he accompanied her to work on election days. that is what it is gotten to. she's worked there for 20 years. god fearing conservative georgia woman and she said one in five of her staff are just quitting. it is too scary for them. to be a civil servant to monitor elections. howinockus of a job that could be. and anybody should feel safe doing. >> and volunteers, the two in georgia whose lives were ruined when they spread a lie around the internet about them taking out suitcases of ballots. like it is -- it isn't even just civil service workers. these are volunteers, the type of people that i used to go shake hands on every election day and say i know you don't have to be here, this is really important for american

democracy, thank you. those people are now afraid and being warned of car bombs. >> you're talking about ruby freeman and shay moss who testified before the january 6 select committee. election workers and volunteers in the state of georgia for doing exactly what you just described trying to help and she testified that her elderly grandmother got a knock on her door and two trump supporters burst into the house saying they were there to make a citizens arrest of her daughter and her granddaughter because of what they heard about this suitcase, which of course turned out not to be true. you could add school boards and it is happening at levels of people just trying to volunteer and help out locally. let's bring into the conversation attorney for "the washington post," george conway, and the host of way too early, our good friend jonathan lemire. so george, let you get in on this conversation about the irs. and as joe said, it is not just these dark corners of the internet any more. this is the leadership of the

republican party, kevin mccarthy and chuck grassley for god's sake saying irs agents with ar-15s are going to kick in people's doors. is there any shame left at all? >> no. i mean we're clearly in the continuing stages of a downward spiral where the rhetoric keeps getting worse and worse and in order to feed the beast that they've created, they double down on the rhetoric. and the problem is, it is sort of like a practical joke that got out of hand. they are taking it seriously now. and people are used to using fight rhetoric in politics when you use it all of the time. but it is become more and more nefarious and more and more specific as time goes on to the point of just, you know, factual lies about how the government goes about its business. and when you start undermining the people who actually force the laws and people who help us decide who has gotten more

votes, and you have people who are enforcing the law being threatened, this is how democracies and republics fall. >> and it is not just the dangerous rhetoric about the fbi and the irs. republicans are playing to extremes when it comes to one issue that will likely favor into the midterm elections. we'll talk about that next on "morning joe." vo: for years washington promised to address rising health care costs. now president biden and democrats just delivered. passing a historic plan to bring down health care costs. lowering premiums - saving families thousands a year. and standing up to big drug companies who keep raising prices by giving medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices. bringing down health care costs for millions of families and seniors. president biden and democrats got it done.

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willie, we're talking about the political environment, how the republicans 2022 should be incredible year for the republicans but they've had problems. we've talked about a lot of different things, the radical talk and the hate speech and summoning people to commit acts of violence by saying the government is coming to get them. i want to go back to an issue

that katy brought up and that was the extremism on a lot of these abortion stories that are coming out from different states, from ohio to florida, a lot of swing states. i have been taken by the number of people who consider themselves to be pro-life and have considered themselves to be pro-life their entirely lives, being shocked by the radicalism of these cases that we're hearing, 10-year-old girls that are chased from the state of ohio, who have been raped and have to go to another state because they know ohio will have a forced birth. story out of florida where -- i just don't even want to get into the details. it is just, it is shocking. even to pro-life people. and i want to go back to the focus group because we remember back 2016 to the heilemann focus

group where that one working class woman said of donald trump, he's one of us. and that was like a shock. i go back to the focus group we had in georgia, that elise jordan had with of the trumpers and they were following him down every path of every conspiracy theory, especially that guy. i think from the suburbs of atlanta, what do you think about roe v. wade, and he goes none of my business. i'm a man. why does a man have any say on what a woman does with her body? and this guy suddenly goes from being, you know, far right trumper to where a hell of a lot of independents are, where the state shouldn't force people to do what their forcing young girls to do after their raped or my god, you have a candidate running for governor who is the

republican nominee in michigan saying a 14-year-old girl been raped by her uncle is why we need to force her having a forced birth of the rapist's baby. this is having a massive impact on a lot of people. >> yeah, there is no question. i mean even if you're pro-life and purely believe that and so many people in our country do, it is extreme to force a 16-year-old to have a baby in the state of florida because the state reason is she's not mature enough to make the decision to have an abortion. but she's mature to have and raise a children. you have to marin aid in that for a moment. and katty kay, look at what happened in kansas. a red state where people came out, including republicans, wire not going strike this out of our constitution that there is a right to an abortion. we may believe that it isn't

right but it shouldn't come down from the state in that way. so the question is, are republicans the more extreme ones talking like joe just said, are they overplaying their hand here. they got the glass ring, roe v. wade was efr turned by the supreme court, but some of these things were talking about are extreme no matter what your belief is on abortion. >> yeah, one in four american women have an abortion and that means that quite a lot of men know women that have had one and there is probably more sympathy for people that have had them and understanding of why women have abortions an the very difficult circumstances that lead to abortions, then one might expect around the country and then on top of that cases of women going through miscarriages who need the dnc procedure to save her lives or save their health because they're going through terrible medical complications around a miscarriage and the doctor has to say i'm not sure i could do that because in this state this

procedure is banned. so perhaps the supreme court didn't think this through. but the consequences of what happened because of that ruling have sent shock waves apr the country, not just amongst women and men, but in kansas where you had counties that have voted solidly for donald trump had actually voted to keep a constitutional right to the abortion in kansas. so, it is having an impact. >> coming up, we'll be joined by a former water grate prosecutor who was asked to represent trump amid the mar-a-lago legal challenges, and we'll talk about this former president, especially this one. "morning joe" is coming right back. moderate to severe eczema still disrupts my skin. despite treatment it disrupts my skin with itch. it disrupts my skin with rash. but now, i can disrupt eczema with rinvoq.

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joe." coming up on 9:00 in the morning in washington, d.c. just about 6:00 a.m. as you wake up out west. good morning, great to have you with us for our fourth hour and a lot to get to. including a federal judge appears willing to unveil at least some of the affidavits supporting the search warrant for mar-a-lago. we'll get a live report from florida in just a moment. plus the former president has had trouble finding expert legal advice as he faces potential criminal exposure. we'll talk to a prominent defense attorney who worked on the watergate prosecution team. he'll tell us why he turned down a request to represent donald trump. and later this hour, the drama dope sick explores the origins of the opioid crisis in america and how one company triggered its start. we'll be joined by director danny strong and actor peter sarsgaard to talk about how the series has transformed the conversation around opioids in this country. but we start this hour