nicole wallace for the last day. i know you're all relieved. after the unprecedented search at mar-a-lago and the retrieval of a boat load of sensitive and in some cases secret and top secret material from donald trump's residence in south florida, america is still grappling with the legal, political and national security implications of a series of developments that have taken us all into terra incognita. the last time i was in this chair it was back in the last week of february was when russia's invasion of ukraine began and we were all watching a world historical event unfold and carry us to a scary place. a totalitarian regime had just invaded a fledgling democracy in the heart of europe sparking the largest land war on the continent since world war ii. now today i have a distinct feeling of deja vu all over again with another potentially world historical development

playing out before our eyes taking us to another scary place over the past fort night. a criminal investigation into donald trump's handling of classified information looming over the country and both major political parties with an even more significant specter casting a long, shadow in sharp relief. the very real possibility that a former president of the united states could soon be indicted for violating the espionage act or other federal statutes. it is extremely volatile and if donald trump is indeed indicted although that remains a big "if," for the moment and we'll move beyond volatility and into more territory that's explosive into where there is a dramatic increase into more political violence than we've seen already in our republic. in just the last two weeks we've seen threats against the fbi and law enforcement surging. a pennsylvania man was arrested last week for threatening to kill agents of the federal bureau of investigation and a man armed with a semiautomatic weapon attacked an fbi field

office in ohio. the language that's currently flooding online message boards on the right has turned from threatening to downright apocalyptic in the wake of the fbi raid on mar-a-lago. among the many lessons of january 6th insurrection is that that kind of language on those kind of chat boards can all too easily lead to actual, tangible, horrifying violence. given all of this, it's not unreasonable at least to ponder and obtain the possibility that at some point in the future we'll look back at the reactions of republican, elected official, conservative media personalities and other voices and factions on the right to the search and seizure operation at mar-a-lago and the events of the past two weeks as a moment when the united states of america was a tinter box and they collect you havely chose to strike a match if you know how combustible it is and how the rhetoric has

been, take a look at this. >> this is the deep state's revenge. >> what they've been doing to president trump is political persecution. >> you have to think of these people as wolves. wolfs who want to eat you. wolves who want to dominate. >> the way our federal government has gone it's like what we thought about the gestapo. >> this is gestapo crap and it will not stand. >> these are gestapo tactics. >> the fbi right now is the gestapo. the fbi is the gestapo. >> this is third-world bull [ bleep ] right here. let me say it again. third world bull [ bleep ]. >> the fbi and the department of justice are going to give trump a fair and impartial firing squad. >> is there an effort by the national security state to stoke violence in a civil war? >> no american president has ever explicitly declared war on his own population. >> that is the destruction of democracy. >> do i know that the boxes of material they took from mar-a-lago that they won't put things in those boxes to entrap him? how do we know? >> who is to say in this kind of

case that some of the documents supposedly seized were not planted there to begin with? >> what the fbi is probably doing is planting evidence which is what they did during the russia hoax. >> they raided our president's home! there is no going back from this, everybody. >> this is the worst attack on this republic in modern history! period! >> it's disgusting. they've declared war on us and now it's game on. >> joining me now, former republican national committee chairman and political analyst michael steele and ben collins, a man who lives in the online forums and former assistant director of counterintelligence of the fbi frank figliuzzi and finally, former democratic congresswoman donna edwards. frank, i'll start with you, and you know, in television you often want to cut things short, you know? we want pace, we want things fast and 30-second clips and make a matchup.

i made the producers on this program do a long mash of that language because i wanted people to see the totality of it. we could have played hours of it, right? that's a worst hits instead of greatest hits. we ran it long so you can have a sense of the scale and sweep of it. republican elected officials and on television and other places just how incendiary and how irresponsible the rhetoric has been and i ask you to assess it and assess its potential impact on politics and the safety in the weeks and months ahead. >> yeah. you don't need a ph.d and intelligence or predicted analytics to see where we are and where we might be going, john. we are already seeing it play out. when someone thinks it's just the time to sacrifice their life by walking into an fbi field office in cincinnati, ohio, with an ar-15 slung around their neck thinks that the culture war justifies that, believes the

lies that the company you are is collapsing, society as we know it will be over. the white race will be eliminated, all of this is coming in spades like a fire hose into people who have no other source of information. so we're already seeing the results play out. armed people outside and field offices and dhs, fbi issuing warnings saying there's an unprecedent threat level now against federal agents. just today, john, twitter suspended the account of some bozo fighting for example state senate saying if he's elected, his plan would be to permit shooting of federal agents on site in florida. they suspended his account. his disinformation and his dangerous, violent rhetoric is still up on facebook and other places. that's where we are. people running for office and people running for office who don't denounce this. whoever is in power in florida should come out and denounce this guy and say he has no part running for office, but we are

unlikely to see that. why is that? because we're in a culture right now of panic for profit. panic for political gain. it's the act of desperate people, but here's the problem. this is the only way they think they can win and maintain powers to align themselves with this kind of violent rhetoric, but here's the problem. at some point, maybe donald trump might be indicted, he might be charged and yes, things are going to get worse with the violence, but what's going to happen is some of those very politicians who are caught up in this will say, you know what? i've read this indictment, this guy, i need to distance myself and it's time to find someone else to align myself who is not yet indicted. it will be too late. it will be too late because the radicalization has already taken place. you don't wave a wand over society and deradicalize them. it's already happened and that means we're in for the long haul and years, perhaps, of trying to

tone down the radical people and get them back into the sunlight. >> michael steele, because you're the former chairman of the republican party, this question has to go to you. you know, in the time of the trump era, political violence is a real prospect here and people will have blood on their hands and the january 6th insurrection happened and there was blood on people's hands and it's not just a donald trump phenomenon. you go back to the -- to the -- to the bombing of the murrah building in oklahoma city back in 1995. >> sure. >> this has been brewing in our politics for a long time and it is still amazing that the party you chaired who used to be the biggest lovers of the fbi and the greatest supporters of law enforcement that they have become not just not supporters, but active opponents and saying things that are putting lives on

the line and implicitly supporting people who are out there advocating civil war. >> it has been going on for a while, john, and it goes back to the late '50s where we saw at that time the emergence of the john burks' society and the right-wing racist sort of mindset that tried to infiltrate the party at that time. the difference between then and other periods up to the present has been one of political leadership, a political will, if you will that said, no, that's not who we are. we're not going to entertain this conversation. get out of here. you saw that with bob dole at his convention when he ran for president making it very clear that the party would not tolerate that type of rhetoric and behavior. you saw with john mccain who pushed back against the anti-muslim sentiments that were

borne out post-9/11 and during the run of barack obama. the difference is leadership. here we are now where the leadership doesn't give a crap. to frank's very important point, it is about the profit of politics. it is about how we grip the system to gain two very central thing, power and cash and to utilize both to sustain each other, to reinforce the money and the cash and so what's happening as i was listening to frank, it occurred to me back in 2015-'16 people were talking about deconstructing the state, and what does that mean? what does that mean? they'll break down these institutions. the underlying quest was not the administrative state, but it was to radicalize the political

class. that's what -- that's where the success is. it's in the radicalization of individuals and communities around this one individual making him to be the be all and the end all. he is the great savior, he is the great fixer and so they buy into that mindset, whereas you saw last week they're willing to show up at his house because he committed the crime. there's a reason why the fbi showed up and yet they ignore and blow past that. so this is a very, to frank's point, dangerous time that have long term implications for the republican party that will try to convince americans this november to bring him the power and then we'll tell him what we're going to do with it. >> donna, some of what michael just said there's a school of thought that republicans are playing with fire. they are doing these irresponsible things and saying

irresponsible things and not taking the impact, and don't actually want to see political violence. they think they have a free pass. they can say whatever they want and raise money off it and they can stir up the base and get the political benefits of having a base that's energized and angry, but deep in their hearts they really don't want political violence. i ask you is that true or is it the case that increasingly in the republican party, i'm talking about elected officials now who aren't trying to encourage violence and that's what's going to happen and we're fine with that? >> well, i think that it would be one thing if all we were seeing or the post on sort of the dark web or now not even the dark web anymore, but to hear some of this language coming out of elected officials, candidates for congress, candidates for governor, i think takes it to a different level and so when you

ask whether you want to see the violence, clearly, they want to monetize it, but if january 6th is any indication and the recent violence that we've had both in threats and actual violence against fbi and law enforcement then it says to me that people know exactly what's coming as a result of their incendiary rhetoric. i would not set aside the possibility that there might be a handful of people in the congress who are setting a pathway to that violence. we've seen increased references to an approaching civil war. i think this is a really dangerous point. there is a place where the violent rhetoric then becomes actual violence. we've seen that play out already and we would not be surprised to see it again and a third of

americans actually believe that political violence is an acceptable response to not getting your way politically. >> you're citing a poll from "the washington post" that said it was justified. if you go deeper with the research here you find more frightening numbers and closer to the 10% range of people who not only think it's justified, but would be willing to use it and would be willing to themselves commit political violence and saying it's quite a bit further that it could be justified in your mind if it were meant to save the republic. you, early in this fortnight that we're talking about, you got a lot of attention when you said on the air that the stuff you were seeing on the online boards were as bad or worse than what you saw on the run-up to 1/6. one of the things that's most amazing is when you play that

sound of those elected officials is first of all, they're saying things like stazzi and gestapo and the words we've never heard before in american politics and it's the echo of online. it's not even like it's much of of a conveyor belt and it's the same language online as it is on capitol hill, fox news, it's all the same, right? and equally scary. >> yeah. let's take a step back and think what accelerationism is, right? the people who are public figures in the acceleration's rhetoric, they see the toned down version of the message boards. they don't say we'll go after this guy and kill him. people on the message boards say that. they say we'll kill these people with these weapons at this time. >> can you -- the definition of accelerationist? >> accelerationist. >> it's the idea that steve bannon is an accelerationist. the idea that it should be taken

down completely and replaced with something else because it is so far beyond repair that we have to get rid of it by any means necessary and that's where we are now with the gop. they've been clear about that and that's the clearest thing of what's happened with the terrorist like the guy in cincinnati last week. they don't feel control. they don't feel power. i'll tell you what they're not talking about first in the forums. they're not talking about voting. they're never talking about voting because they don't think it counts. they think democracy is a sham and it has to be overrode by their guy because they can't fathom that somebody like donald trump, a complete cult of personality, what they are talking about are plans of action. recently they were talking about how to get around blocks and specific states that allow you to download blueprints to get ghost guns because they consider the irs will come to your door and take your guns. >> let's pause on this for a second. let's talk about the irs because in the middle of this fort night from hell that we've just gone

through that there was a moment when after all these republicans came out, elected officials and media people came out and attacked the fbi there was a moment -- there was a momentary pause at the end of last week where it seemed like the word had gone out from trump world that something bad was about to happen, and they suddenly shifted, like student body right and they suddenly decided to seize on the irs. i want to play first a mash-up of first of the anti-irs rhetoric and then on one particular piece of that rhetoric. so let's play the first one right now. >> is the irs gearing up for war in our country? is nancy pelosi trying to start a nuclear war? asia? is there an effort by the national security state to stoke violence in a civil war here at home? >> those irs agents are designed to come after you. they're not designed to come after the billionaires and the big corporations. they're designed to come after small businesses and working families. >> they're going to go after the

mom and pop. they're going to go after the small business person, the independent contractor, the uber driver and they're going to focus basically parts of the country that don't support what the regime is trying to do. >> i mean, just the regime, think, just for the record, everybody. there's not going to be irs agents and the basic premise of this is b.s., but how much has that lit up? is the irs suddenly in the world that you study are people focused on the irs? should people of the irs be as afraid as those in law enforcement of what's about to happen to them? >> they turn their target to the irs because there was news that that's what's in that budget and that's what allows them to take the irs and say this is exactly what you're supposed to be afraid of. you have to realize, in these spaces it's targeted harassment campaigns based on where the guy tells you to target, and there

are four or five people on the right that have that kind of -- it was a directive giving ability and one would be donald trump and there were smaller accounts and accounts like lib and tiktok or whatever. for example, there were attacks against boston's children's hospital this week. >> right. >> because they were told they were treating trans children this. so the doj had to turn on a dime, by the scare part of this is that's not an accident and that's the introis structure of the far-right eddia over the the last tw or three years impeach. >> they seem really coordinate. >> michael steel, i'll use this

as a lesson. ? here's chuck fwrasly talking about the irs. let's play that clip. >> are they going to have a strike force that go the with ak-15s, a small business person in iowa with thooerd because i think they're going after middle class and small business people. >> i ask you, michael steele, was there a time in my adult lifetime when democratic kids coming out of my northwestern university who went to work as summer interns in chuck grassley's office and he's seen as a moderate republican and he's gotten more concern over time and that's someone who has been -- that's an invasion of the body snatchers. chuck grassley saying painting a picture of irs agents with automatic weapons looking for people who have pass-through income in a strikeforce fashion. it's crazy conspiracy theory

paranoia run amok. what happened to chuck grassley and by extension to all of the people who used to be like chuck grassley in the republican party who now talk this way? >> i like it to an infection. an infiction that could have stemmed back to 2016 on that stage where 15 republicans stood next to dot and refused to cauterize the wound he be beginning to open. instead, they again saw value. one, we can control this bay because he does not know what he's talking to and then stir the base and we want them to turn out. chuck grassley, even though he's stepping down and going on is still now infected by that particular aspect of republicanism and to ben's very important points and i hope people really listen to what

he's talking about because the boy is dropping some knowledge because you have to understand what we're up against here and how it works. this is ultimate tail wagging dog. chuck grassley and the leadership in the past would either ignore or shoot that stuff down. now they're consumed by it. they are fed from it and they regurgitate it. chuck grassley knows damn well the irs is not armed with ar-15s coming to somebody's small business. he knows that, but there is no upside in being honest about that. there is no political benefit inside the gop as is currently constituted to push back against that, so it becomes a self-perpetuating rolling over and continual regurgitation of conspiracies, lies and bull, and he, ted cruz, all of these folks know damn well that everything that's coming outside of their

mouth is a straight bold-faced lie because if it isn't ted and it isn't grassley, put the evidence in front of the american people show us in the bill that they're who they're the going to do. don't conjecture, don't assume, don't lie about it, prove it, but you can't because oncan't, you know why? because it's not true and it goes to why ben is trying to tell people how this aspect of our politics has now been taken over and consumed by this very small cadre of influencers, white nationalists and others and the gop is a damn sucker for every last bit of it. >> that was a dark vision, and i would sometimes be hesitant to go even further, but we'll go further. no one on this panel is going anywhere. we have a few more questions about all of this. after the break, we'll talk about the fallout from what we've seen in the last two weeks

and again, what can we do about this? is there anything that can be done about it? we'll talk about that, plus the string of recent wins for president joe biden and his fellow democrats and how the white house hopes to convert the legislative wins into momentum into the party heading into the midterm elections and vivid proof as if any were needed that donald trump's allies and especially his so-called attorneys are all bark and no bite. pretty much always have been. all of those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after this. do not go anywhere. r this do not go anywhere ver have too many pillows. sometimes i'm all business. wooo! i'm a momma 24/7. seriously with the marker? i'm a bit of a foodie. perfect. but not much of a chef. yes! ♪ wayfair you've got just what i need. ♪

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>> we're back with our panel, michael steele, frank figliuzzi, what is a friday without looking into the abyss and going to commercial and looking deeper into the abyss. you've been clear-eyed and never minced words about just how perilous the situation we've been in particularly since january 6th and after january 6th. i mentioned that ben before said the situation on the basis of what he was seeing on the boards were the worst he's seen since january 6th. what's the threat level about the prospect of the tinderbox i talked about is really primed to start -- whether it is auto catalytic or someone will pour gasoline or both that we'll end up in a giant flaming mess whether donald trump is indicted or not. >> you know, this is a dilemma

that you've referred to before, john, which is to try to balance this desire to state the threat level in a way that doesn't absolutely have people's head explode and seek out the truth. don't be part of that panic culture that we just talked about, but all that said, i've got to tell you that the prospects moving forward are pretty dire because as i said the radicalization has occurred, and accountability is going to be a big, important step to start, to stop some of this violence, but it's going to be ugly. accountability may or may not occur at a level sufficient to that and if trump is indicted on something somewhere on one or more investigations that are under way, his people, many of them will see it as an attack as they did for the mere search warrant. the mere search warrant got us dead people, namely the guy in

cincinnati and all kinds of threats. politicians backed off for a second and then -- wham, we have statements like you just led with with senator grassley against the irs of all agencies. look, not a popular agency, but really, some examiner at the irs with an accounting degree will now be targeted because she's doing her job? is that really where we're at? so accountability and we can go on for an hour and i will allude to it quickly is the president's strategy released, what? a year and a half ago through merrick garland how do we combat domestic terrorism and we have to teach them to be more savvy consumers of information. are we really in a place where books are tossed out of libraries and he talked about social media legislation. really? are we going to get the house and senate to agree on how to

regulate the social media platforms? no. so all of the solutions that typically we come up with when we sit down around the table and try to come up with them don't look viable right now. so i'm all for accountability. it has to happen, it can't happen fast enough. >> right, and we've got to the vote. look, here's the government guy, right? the national security guy, what am i going to tell you? it's not government. it's your vote. show up and vote for someone who is not going to dismantle democracy. >> frank, i want you to answer these questions quickly, okay? how long have you been in this business? how many years? >> 25 at the fbi. >> 25 at the fbi. has there ever been a time when you thought the prospect of political violence was more likely, widespread political violence, serious political violence in america than there is right now? >> zero. from what i hear across field offices all 56 of them with the security posture it's never happened to this extent before. >> do you think the country is

more at risk right now than it was in the days immediately following 9/11? >> well, see the days following 9/11 we were taking precautions because of what we did not know in the aftermath. >> right. >> we did not know the extent of the threat particularly here at home. now we're talking precautions because of what we do know and the threat is significant and the intel says it's for real. so there is a huge difference. it is worse than post-9/11 here at home. >> ben, do you have any doubt in your mind that rich lowery, a conservative columnist was in "the new york post" yesterday in a not manipulative way that he thought merrick garland was getting ready to indict donald trump and he said he's a respectable guy and he's not a crazy view is that donald trump is going to get indicted and many think that's quite likely and garland has the evidence and

i don't want to feed panic and i don't love playing the speculation claim and just on the basis of everything that you're seeing, your expectation if donald trump gets indicted, your expectation is violence? >> yes. >> yes. >> and two words next to each other, militia tiktok. what we've seen so far are lone actors who have gone off without a plan and they've done some stupid stuff. several cases of that in the last week. we have not seen organized violence in the places where they organized them last time for january 6th. january 6th in a lot of ways, we got lucky and the quick response forces and the oath keepers set up in a hotel across the river with the weapons in it and they didn't get used. their plan didn't go according to plan. >> right. >> that is not -- i don't think that will happen again. these are groups that are

building and recruiting on civilian parts of the internet like tiktok and they are talking like the world is ending, the apocalypse is coming and the way they speak about this is very come and get it. it's very, like, we are ready to go at a moment's notice. just arrest the guy. that's my worry. there's not been an organized plan and there are organized groups. >> right. >> when an organized plan from an organized group happens we're in trouble. >> now that i know there's militia tiktok it gives me another reason to stay off tiktok. donna, what should we do about this category. here's what joe biden says he'll do about it. "the washington post" reporting he will host a summit encountering hate-fueled violence. president biden will host a summit next month aimed at

countering the motivated attacks in buffalo and other cities around the country in recent months. white house secretary karine st. pierre will be at the united we stand summit and that is dealing with all manner of hate, donna and some of those are not driven by necessarily political violence and they're horrible mass shootings that are driven by a variety of different motivations, but sometimes political and that will be folded into the summit. it sounds to me a little bit like what frank just said. i like summits and the speeches are great, but i do wonder, and i'm not being critical of biden here. he wants to do something, but the scale of the problem and the urgency and the immediacy of it, curricula, summits and all of these things sammy like weak beer when it comes to dealing with what we're dealing with. >> i think for the president, and i do applaud him, you know, at least trying to pull something together, but the problem is that it's a problem

with the republican party or -- to frank's point, as long as there are not republicans within that party, within the leadership who are demanding something different and it's sort of democrats and like minds speaking with each other, and look, i think there are fully 60% of the country that really is not going down that path at all, but it's a pretty robust 30% to 40% who are prepared to, and so -- >> right. >> -- i really applaud it. i think that it is a challenge and that's -- >> donna, we're losing your sound so i'm going to go to michael steele here and you're breaking up. so michael, i want to end with you. we don't have a lot of time. everyone says the same thing.

democrats themselves aren't going to solve the problem and republicans have to solve the problem. i do want to ask you this. there is nothing, there is no political harm that can come to mitt romney that will get re-elected in utah. politically untouchable, for mitt romney to walk in and say guys, stop it! don't do what you're doing. mitt romney doesn't do that, right? and i can name a lot of people, who have no interest in politics going forward. if they're not doing it now is there any hope that anybody will from the republican side, because if republicans are what we need to fix this problem, i see no sign that any of them are going to do anything. >> could not agree with you more. it is the most disheartening part of this whole thing. i relate back to what i said in 2016. you had a republican leadership standing on the stage and they

watched this carnival barker take them down one by one and did nothing in response, calling up their family members, calling up their wives and saying nothing. so this leadership has decided that it will not lead, and so it's going to be how americans respond at the ballot box and how we as citizens overwhelm the ballot box with democracy and that's the most important thing we can do right now because republicans aren't going to help us. >> you get someone like mike pence gets -- at the same time he says i share the concern of millions of americans over the concern of donald trump's property. not helpful. michael steele, frank figliuzzi, donna, thank you. we'll try to do better after the break in terms of uplift. how the biden white house plans

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vote yes on 27. they said it couldn't be done. because the big drug companies have billions of dollars and an army of lobbyists. but aarp has never run from a tough fight. they stood with their 38 million members and said, "enough." enough of the highest prescription drug prices in the world. together, we forced the big drug companies to lower prices and save americans money. we won this fight, but big pharma won't stop. so neither will aarp. >> we are in a season of substance. this administration began amid a dark time in america. we've not waivered. we've not flinched, and we've not given in. instead we're delivering results for the american people. we didn't tear down, we built up. we didn't look back, we moved forward and today, today offers

further proof that the soul of america is vibrant. the future of america is bright and the promise of america is real and just beginning. >> if you're old enough to remember terry jacks sang a song called "seasons in the song." that's president joe biden singing substance. he was talking about the inflation reduction@touting it earlier this week championing the achievements that his administration has racked up over the two years. the ira is a big deal and a capstone on a series of wins that the administration plans to highlight after labor day for the campaign season. it drove home the historic nature of these victories. >> we now have a presidency where the president has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since kennedy,

the second largest health care bill since johnson and the largest climate change bill in history. >> in a memo to ron klain that surfaced earlier this week, jennifer o'malley, and communications zarina dunn laid it out this way, for many administrations, august can be a momentum killer. for this team, august is going to be a momentum builder as we come out of last week which featured a string of bill signings and gas back under $4 and the house passage of the inflation reduction act which underscored president biden's leadership. the administration and the allies will launch an aggressive effort of the president's accomplishment and the inflation reduction act of the american people and highlight the contrast with congressional republicans' vision. joining me now is the one and only simone thompson and host of simone right here on msnbc and

on peacock and hillary clinton's presidential campaign manager in 2016. good to see you guys. joel, to start with you just because you're a little bit -- you've seen a little bit more history than simone who is a young, dynamic and vibrant. >> thanks, john. >> you're more of of a grizzled -- >> he's calling you old, joel. he's calling you old. >> joel got that. >> basically boasting about joel biden's historic accomplishments, he essentially didn't say it. he's saying it to all of the people in pundit world who said joe biden will never be fdr, he'll never be lbj and ron is basically without saying that he's basically saying, he kind of is on a historic basis, although if you look at the scale of the accomplishments. i guess my question to you as someone who studied public opinion, can you move the needle

talking about the past or do you need to talk about the picture to score on the basis of your accomplishments? >> yeah. i think in important elections and in most elections there are big things and not small things and it's about the future and not the past and it's about their lives and not your life and it doesn't mean that what you've done as president and who you are doesn't count and what you have to do is take those accomplishments and talk about them in a way that is going to be dynamic and relevant for people in their daily lives. so one list of accomplishments rarely work, focusing on two or three things that you've done that will make a difference in people's lives. one of the things that hasn't been talked enough is medicare and for the price of prescription drugs and we have one person regularly taking a prescription drug. this is a pocketbook issue over and over again with people and connecting with the people that matter to them in their lives

and i would add to that, and i think this has changed the dynamic and the kansas referendum shows it and research that i did recently when a fellow republican neil newhouse shows it is that protecting choice is going to be much more front and center in this campaign and it's not just an issue for women. it's an issue for men. it's an issue for independent voters and on a study we did it showed that the second top priority among independents was protecting choice, and so what i think that what you have to do is communicate with voters about the things that will affect their lives most and that will have the biggest impact on their lives and their family's future. >> simone, you were a part of that team for quite a time. the campaign in 2020 and working for the vice president until you left earlier this year. you read a memo like that one from jenna, and anita dunn, two

professional women who won a lot of fights over the course of their careers that we get a version of reality and generalities of that memo that they assume will be in the hands of the press. if you're in the room right now and thinking how do we take these wins and talk about the things that people care about for sure and how do you build a sharp message from the white house that is the kind of thing that every democrat in the country will want to run on that is positive and in some cases on the negative side because there's a lot to attack when it comes to republicans. >> i actually think that this white house has done that, john. i think the only thing that we have not seen that i know that they are in the process of getting done is tailoring this for what it means for every single state. i think those points should not be overlooked here and that this is a huge, humongous deal and if we cannot explain it to people in omaha, nebraska and people in south carolina it won't make a difference at the ballot box, not just this november, but for

novembers to come and the way to do that is to tell people what does this mean for wisconsin. >> what do the energy pieces mean? what does it mean for folks in arizona, and i know that they have a plan to do that. look, i think that the best thing this white house did was go out there with the contracts early on and ultra maga, right? and the -- i think we have a tendency to slap cute names on things, but they explained what this ultra maga was, and then my republican friends gave a huge help when they started running on things like making 10-year-olds have babies by their rapists. the reality is the pocketbook issues that we talk about, the kitchen table issues and this go round are the economy, they're inflation, specifically, they're gas prices. those kitchen table issues are also a woman's ability to make their decisions for their own

body. are children coming home at the end of the day? and there is one party in the united states of america who has a plan for that, who has run on getting things done and who has delivered and that's the democratic party. the republicans had an opportunity to vote for the inflation reduction act that they've been hammering hammerin president on inflation and every single person in the united states congress declined to do so. >> symone and joel coming right back after this break. we'll talk about just a little more detail. this break. we'll talk about just a little more detail. the lows of bipolar depression can leave you down and in the dark. but what if you could begin

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we're back with joel and symone. guys, we don't have much time so i'm going to ask you both the same question. it seems to me a huge deal. there's definitely democratic momentum. we see it, 46-42 on the generic ballot, not a bad place for democrats to be in a midterm year. joel, i'll start with you and save the same question for symone. this trump news is a big deal that's going to have big political consequences. trump has generally been seen as good for democrats in terms of motivating the base. what do you do -- what should democrats, the biden white house and democrats do, if donald trump gets indicted between now and election day? how do you handle that as a matter of messaging and strategy? >> this may be counter to what a lot of democrats think, but 46-42 is not great for democrats in the generic. to win in the midterms, democrats have to be ahead by eight points consistently from labor day on. i think what democrats have to do is focus on the contrast they can make with republicans,

including on the economy right now. the one thing republicans keep wanting to do is to give tax breaks to corporations and the very wealthy. it's something that i see repeatedly in my polling that the public and independent voters and swing voters in the middle don't want. i think we have to put republicans on their heels, talk about the fact that corporate profits are at record high while companies and corporations are jacking up their prices, which is what's driving inflation in part, not just supply chain shortages. profits are up. they're hiring more. there's no reason on earth why we should be cutting their taxes. they're doing better than they've done in a decade. >> symone, donald trump soaks up a lot of oxygen. democrats, would you advise them right now to make donald trump a huge part of their message going forward and cast the republican party as the party of donald trump cultism and extremism or to make it a series of arguments more like what joel just said? >> look, i think joel made an argument for talking about, one, what democrats have done, but also two, making a point about the extremism of the republican

party. if donald trump were enough of a motivating factor for democrats, terry mcauliffe would still be the governor of virginia right now, and he is not. and i think there's a tendency from the viewpoint of the media apparatus to make it mostly about trump. you know, we're back to the point where we are covering donald trump -- it's not even his tweets. it's stuff off his little side social media site instead of specifics of the most major piece of climate legislation that has ever been passed in this country, and so i do think that there's a responsibility on the media apparatus to not just take the shiny object that donald trump has given us. he's a master marketer. we shouldn't all just be dumb consumers. but democrats, they have to do their work. also, don't take the shiny objects. focus on what the people are telling you they care about, and people care about women's bodily autonomy. they care about what's going on with the economy, and democrats have a plan for it all. >> symone, if you were to join truth social, which i think is that trump platform, i would

join too. i don't think you're going to. joel, i know you're not on truth social. thank you both for coming on. in the 5:00 hour, what four seasons total landscaping has to do with donald trump's legal strategy related to mar-a-lago and classified documents. the next hour of "deadline white house" will answer that question, and it starts right after this quick break. t question, and it starts right after this quick break

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the fraud on the people of pennsylvania constitutes a fraud on all legitimate voters, because we also have to alert the people of pittsburgh that the same fraud was done to them as here.

it's a fraud, an absolute fraud. they conducted themselves in a way that suggests that there was fraud. that's a fraud. that's a fraud on the voters. voter fraud. voter fraud. voter fraud. i don't think they're going to care much about ballot fraud. this is outrageous. >> aloha and namaste again, everyone, it's 5:00 here in gotham city, i'm john heilemann in for nicole wallace for this last hour this week. we're going to talk about what happened two years ago, what you saw there, that clown show at four seasons total landscaping. two years later is unexpectedly instructive as a gateway into how donald trump and his allies are thinking about their current legal and political dilemmas. by our count, in that half-hour press conference back at the end of 2020, rudy giuliani said the word "fraud" 27 times. but then, a week later, when the time came to test the allegation in a u.s. district court in pennsylvania, giuliani told the

federal judge, matthew brand, "this is not a fraud case." quite an admission from a man who cited fraud 27 times and also swore up and down that there was a gross miscarriage of justice in the state of pennsylvania. now, keep that in mind as we evaluate the latest from magaland. the way they say one thing and often do another. the prime example is that for the past few days in the supposed interest of transparency, the twice-impeached ex-president himself has called for a highly unusual step, the release of the affidavit behind the mar-a-lago search warrant. the document that many people believe in the legal profession could be quite harmful to his interests, but again, say one thing, do another. from the "washington post," "as a hearing began on thursday, on whether to release the document in response to a request by news organization, including "the washington post", trump's legal team still hadn't taken a position in court, conservative activist group judicial watch,

which also pushed for the release, noted in its filing that trump publicly supported the release of the document. but when trump lawyer christina bobb arrived at the court, she said she was just there to observe with no plans to file or say anything about the matter at hand." last night, a curious and notably skeptical laura ingraham on fox news, of all people, pressed ms. bobb on that very point. >> we really just chose to see how it would play out. >> i understand that you chose to do that, but 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're -- you didn't speak in court today, nor did you join any of these 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 would maintain that we haven't waived our right and that still is maintained. we need to wait and see. i can't be certain at this point because we haven't seen the affidavit, and we certainly haven't seen the redactions and how it's 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, so i don't know. we can't say. >> joining us now, harry litman, former u.s. attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general and now the host of the talking feds podcast, plus miles taylor, former chief of staff for the department of homeland security. and tracy walder, former cia officer and fbi special agent who spent five years as a covert operative for the cia's counterterrorism center. and with me on this set, at this hour, rev al sharpton, host of msnbc's "politics nation" and president of the national action network. harry litman, i begin with you

as is my wont when there are matters of law at stake. i've said it many times for the last two weeks that i'm not a lawyer but i'll ask this question. christina bobb last night, when laura ingraham said, why didn't you file anything? she said, we chose to see how it would play out. is that how it works in court, generally, when you're an interested party in a legal proceeding? you don't file anything and just choose to see how it plays out? has that been your experience in litigation in the past? >> yeah, i think your legal term, hamina, hamina is the apt translation. once again, the courts have been the ultimate -- maybe the only backstop to the truth here, right? this is the rudy giuliani, oh, it's not a fraud case. remember sidney powell, nobody could ever believe what i said, in defense of defamation. god bless the courts and penalties for perjury that

actually act as a kind of truth serum, keeping people, you know, keeping them from saying the truth. but now, of course, they are perfectly contradictory, saying, in public, oh, let's release the whole thing and taking no position at all in court where, of course, anybody with any sense knows this affidavit is nothing but bad news for trump were it to be released. >> but harry, i want to drill down on this, because it seems to me that, again, my understanding of this, if you -- it doesn't matter what you say outside court. they can talk to the press all day long, get on the courthouse steps, put out stuff on truth social. the former president can say whatever he wants, but in the end, the only thing that matters in the court is -- the way you speak in a court is with your filing. so, if you're calling for the release of the affidavit and all those other forums and then you decide not to file calling for the release of the affidavit, are you not, by implication, saying, we don't want the affidavit released? if you wanted it released, you'd file, asking for it to be

released. if you don't file for it to be released, you're effectively saying, we actually would rather it not be released. >> so, 100%. they can be saying, let the news media handle it for us, but that's, of course, what they're saying. and now, the position is, by the way, not even that -- let's have everything released. that's what they said after taking no position in court. i did a little demonstrative for you at the commercial break, john, because they are setting things up to be aggrieved no matter what, because the best case scenario is it's going to be heavily redacted. there will be pages that look like this, not hard to draw up, and they'll be able to say, look at that. sinister. look at what the fbi's doing. they're now in a position, no matter what, to scream in the public sphere while, of course, remaining silent in the court of law with exactly the impact you say. they have given up any actual legal claim, but they don't have a legal claim, and they don't want a legal claim.

they just want boasting rights in the public sphere. >> they do not want this thing to come out, rev, because it can't be good news for donald trump. there's nothing in this affidavit that's going to help him. and harry said, there's one alternative theory, which is that they would let the news media do the heavy lifting. when in the history of donald trump and his people did they decide to defer to nbc news, "the new york times," "the washington post," and coalitions of news organizations to do their bidding in court? it's bonkers to think that's what they really want. >> since they've made a career out of denouncing the news as fake news, now all of a sudden you're going let the news media be -- but it's the typical thing of picking the fight, and then knowing you can't win the fight so you tell your crowd, hold me back, and he's hoping the judge will do it for him, because he knows more than any of us speculating, what could possibly be in that affidavit, and it can't be helpful to him. and i think that if there's anyone more than the justice department that hopes that the

evidence that is in that affidavit comes -- does not come out on thursday, it's donald trump. >> right. it's -- i think it's more sinister, and in some ways, clever than that. their attitude is that there's a -- they can play this double game where the assumption going into the court yesterday was that the judge was going to say, it's not going to come out at all. they say, we called for it to come out. here's taylor, the communications director for trump. there's a tweet that this person sent out last night. "president trump has made his view clear that the american people should be permitted to see the unredacted affidavit related to the raid and break-in at his home. today, magistrate judge reinhart rejected the gop's cynical attempt. however, no redaction should be necessary and the whole affidavit should be released, given the democrats' penchant for using redactions to hide government corruption, just like they did with the russia hoax." number one, when they had a

chance to file, they didn't do that. now, they're in the perfect position, rev. you saw what harry held up. there's going to be probably, almost certainly, a redacted version that's going to look like that. and that is going to be the perfect situation for trump to go up and say, there's the conspiracy. if you could just see what was behind those redactions, you'd know there was nothing to this. >> and by the way, go to my site and contribute money so i can fight those powers that don't want you to have your right to discriminate against everybody else but you. i mean, there's also the -- since you said sinister, there's also the fund-raising aspect of this that they're doing, and keeping him dominant because we all are talking about donald trump, which is part of the narcissism that he always has. he wants to be the subject matter, whether it be good or batted. >> grifters going to grift. there it is, trump raking in millions of dollars on the back of this fbi thing. it's all a bonanza from trump's point of view until he ends up

in jail, if that happens. miles, i want to ask you, there's a reality that the -- that, in addition to playing this game of the outside-inside strategy where they say one thing and do another thing, which we saw again all the way back to the 2020 election, there's another thing they do, a similar application of that, relates to another issue, which relates to the surveillance tapes and the security in which -- with which they claim that the classified material was held. that's been core to their argument. i want to go back to the trump lawyer, ms. bobb, again, with laura ingraham on fox news last night talking about the secure room. let's play that. >> was there a limited number of people who had access to that storage room? it seems like a pretty important room, right, since they've made such a big deal of it and had the lock on it and so forth. >> it's a very limited number of people that have access down there, and it was enough to where president trump believed or our team believed that it was secure, not that they asked for one more lock, add another lock, which we did, and then for

whatever reason, they decided that they still needed to raid the place. >> so, i ask you this question, miles. they're now -- their public position is -- her position last night was, you got to go check with the maintenance people, basically. somebody's got to call a janitor to find out exactly how secure this room was. if that's really their public posture, is that not damaging for them, politically if not legally? >> john, i'm not a lawyer, but i would tell you right now, it looks to me like donald trump is going into the major leagues with some minor league lawyers, and i don't say that speculatively, john. that lawyer that you just featured was planted by the white house to work under me while i worked at the department of homeland security, and i will say, we did not trust that individual in some cases with a photocopier, let alone handling a federal case like this. so, if i was donald trump, i'd tell him i've had that employee

before, i wouldn't feel very good going into court with that person as your defense at the moment. i don't feel convinced by the arguments christina bobb made on television. this is the type of thing that would get people thrown in jail if they were anyone but the president of the united states. this makes hillary clinton's emails look like a child's petting zoo. i mean, this is massively significant, that they were storing information, allegedly of this high classification, down in a basement. the other thing i would add, john, is earlier, you know, you were wondering why trump would ask for the affidavit to be redacted. he's not playing three dimensional chess, in my view, and thinking that it will help to have the redactions out there. i really think this is about revenge, and i have been on the receiving end of it when i was still anonymous. trump tried desperately every way to find out who the critic was. i think he wants the affidavit released because he wants to know who around him is ratting him out. and he's worried about what else might come out. that's what donald trump wants

to see, and his lawyers probably won't be able to hold him back. >> i want to clarify one thing here, because now that you have informed us, we've been interested in the lawyers for donald trump this week, and we had the discussion of their not exactly stellar backgrounds in some of the work they've done that qualified them to be taking on one of the most important national security cases in the history of the country. a colleague from inside your administration wrote to me the other day, when ms. bobb first popped up, and he referred to her as "a complete idiot." would you agree with that? is that a fair assessment from another trump colleague? >> i'm not going to personally disparage people like that, but i would say, you know, christina bobb was assigned to work in exec s.e.c. at dhs. that's the office that prints papers and puts together briefings for the secretary. i kept her out of most meetings, because i did not feel comfortable with her being in sensitive meetings with even the secretary of homeland security, but apparently now she's

advising the ex-president. i wish him well with that defense and with that employee, but look, i don't have confidence in the information they've been putting out there publicly, and i think the ex-president is an extremely hot water and is getting extremely bad advice. >> miles, i'll just say that i know you -- you said you don't want to get involved in personal disparagement but if you start by describing someone as not being trustworthy with a photocopier, that's in the general vicinity. eric trump kicked this whole thing off, the notion that donald trump was calling for, again, watch what they do, not what they say. here's eric trump. he went on "hannity" and basically kind of threw some chum in the water around the notion that the trump people would release the surveillance tapes from mar-a-lago. let's listen to that, and we'll talk about it. >> do you still have the surveillance tape, is that correct? are you allowed to share that with the country?

>> absolutely, sean. at the right time. >> so, that, like, set off a frenzy around, like, that's what -- that's something that got picked up by everybody in trump's world. trump is going to release is surveillance tapes. talk about that, tracy, what you think is the risk and potential rewards, whether donald trump really would ever release the security footage from inside mar-a-lago that would show what the fbi actually did in its search and who had access to that confidential and classified material. >> so, i think, first, i want to talk about the risks. the risks that releasing that video could have is actually directly to law enforcement, which really is what we've seen a lot of politicians talking about, kind of trying to rally up their base to commit violent acts against law enforcement. you could have agents' faces that are on there. you could have undercover agents' faces who are on there, and i think that's really, really important to think about. also, we're looking at

investigations surrounding highly classified and sensitive material. you know, what if some of that material is on this surveillance camera? we don't have the doj going through and redacting it like we may have with the affidavit. this is -- this lies solely in the hands of trump. now, the positive to releasing it is i can almost completely guarantee you, as a former fbi agent, that the agents executed this search warrant, i would say, perfectly. i don't use that word lightly. i think they dotted all their is and crossed all of their ts, and this will show that nothing nefarious really went on during the execution of that search warrant. however -- and again, this is just my hypothesizing. i'm not certain that i trust trump, just given his loose relationship with the truth, to release this video in its entirety and really undoctored. >> rev, i just -- i think it's -- i mean, i don't know the

answer to this. we do know from mark caputo from nbc news, they looked -- he checked this out a little bit and came back and said, there's not been any serious consideration of releasing the video. that eric trump blurted that thing out as eric trump is sometimes wont to do and all of a sudden, there's some benefit to this. let's play this up. the best part of mark's reporting, he said there's been some discussion of using some of the footage in an ad that would make trump look like he was the victim of jack-booted thugs. i say again, the likeliest thing is that that footage would only reveal two things. one, the proper behavior of the fbi, and two, potentially someone at mar-a-lago that let everybody know who had access to those documents. none of that's in trump's interest. better to talk about it, raise money off of it. >> talk about it, raise money off it, keep yourself in the media and a moving ball, and also, to make people not really deal with the gravity of what we're talking about. we're talking about some very

serious documents that could have been abused, misused, traded. we don't know what we're talking about here. that could undermine the security of the united states and therefore all of us. donald trump wants us to talk about everything other than the undermining of an american election and the undermining of our protection in terms of what could have been in those documents that he took home like they were personal property, and i think we should not lose sight of the gravity of this while he plays this comedic kind of catch me if you can. it's a lot more serious than that, and americans need to look at it that way. >> it's often been noted that steve bannon sort of set the template for how the administration would communicate, which was flood the zone with excrement, right? that's what he said early in the administration. right now, the excrement is flowing at a very high clip, but this gets more serious for trump, we're going to see a lot more of that excrement. no one going anywhere. much more with this panel on the

twice-impeached disgraced ex-president's charade around the mar-a-lago search. after the break, later in the hour, we'll go to ukraine, where officials in kyiv are warning russia that maybe planning a large-scale terrorist attack on europe's biggest nuclear reactor and looking to blame the ukrainians for it. and with new attacks behind enemy lines and even inside russia itself, we'll take a look at why the last few weeks may be turning the war, finally, in ukraine's favor. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. so, stick with us. continues after a quick break. so, stick with us. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ we believe there's an innovator in all of us. ♪ ♪ that's why we build technology that makes it possible for every business... and every person... to come to the table and do more incredible things.

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harriet, miles, tracy and the rev are all back with us. i wanted to talk to you guys a little bit more about the mysteries of mar-a-lago as we call them around here. this is a "new york times" story by tim weiner who's one of the best reporters in the country about matters related to national security and espionage and the world of spooks and spies. he wrote this piece here. "mystery at mar-a-lago. we may not know what these documents reveal for some time. whenever the fbi affidavit justifying the search is unsealed, it's likely to be heavily redacted. what we do know is that this case is not a paper chase. and it's more than a legal effort to preserve history for future generations. it's a counterintelligence matter involving espionage laws intended to protect the nation's secrets and detect spies. at mar-a-lago, according to intelligence veterans, has long been a target for foreign spies, as has mr. trump. such investigations can take a generation to develop. took the fbi nearly two decades to catch one of its own agents who was spying for moscow. sometimes they disappear into

thin air but it may be a storm is brewing. whatever the outcome, some day we'll get a glimpse of what mr. trump has been hiding in his gilded palace. presidents have few secrets that time will not reveal." harry, all of you can really field this question, but i'll start with you. tim weiner has great historical perspective, and he's right. but we don't really have generations to wait here. american democracy's on the line and we have a midterm election coming up. is there any way in which this thing -- the wheels of justice and the processes that normally take so long in this era, is there a way to speed this up so we can get the answers we need to keep this democracy afloat? >> well, look, reinhart is thinking in these terms. he's a, you know, long-time doj guy, and yet, he said, there's a strong public need to know. the actual nitty-gritty of the national security stuff, no. it's going to take a long time. everything else, by the way, we

will find out if trump is charged. it will be made public, this affidavit. and we'll also find out eventually, and by eventually, i don't mean six years. i mean, you know, seven, eight months, even if he's not charged. the national security stuff is what he is talking about as being perhaps closeted for a generation. but look, he's right, in part. this is both things now, the spear head of it was to get the national security stuff back, but it's now morphed into a criminal investigation. when that criminal investigation ripens and goes forward, we'll learn a lot, but not necessarily the actual secrets that he was so cavalier about and was actually saying, even yesterday, rudy giuliani, oh, it was about as safe here, we thought, as the white house. that's why we kept it. that, and it's mine, said trump, not the white house's. that part of it will remain secret, but the part of trump's

misconduct and why he did it, that will come out, either in charges or that part of the affidavit. >> tracy, we've all been on this kind of crazy train together for the last two weeks since this story broke, and i keep thinking about this, rather than doing a week in review section or session, we should be doing hike a fortnight in review. as we sit here on this friday and you have been paying attention to this story and analyzing it, i'm curious about what you feel like the big questions are, beyond the one central one, which is still, we don't know. why did donald trump have these documents down at mar-a-lago? what are the questions on your mind as we head into the weekend that you would most like to know the answers to that we have some chance of actually getting the answers to in a reasonable time frame? >> so, i think that that's an excellent question. my biggest thing and the issue i've spoken about really all along is i'm coming at it from my cia perspective, and i worked counterintelligence as an agent at the bureau, and really, my

concern is, what damage, ultimately, has this done to our current sources and methods, to our current ability to collect information, and to our ability to stop any future attacks or folks that want to harm us here in the united states. that's really what's key to me. i know we all want to see the documents, and i do too. but i think that's what's actually the most important. what are -- what is the cia doing right now to ensure that all of this is shored up? because i think, you know, trump is a lot of things, but i think he was purposeful in the documents that he kept, and the reasonings for why he kept them, and i want to fully understand the implications that that has on us and our ability to stop future occurrences into our country. >> miles, your central takeaway from the last two weeks and your central big question remaining. >> oh, good question. big takeaway? we all should have expected

this. we should have expected this before donald trump became president, before he was elected president. there are friends of mine in the intelligence community who were responsible for briefing the candidates. they were worried then that donald trump did not display the demeanor of being able to protect classified information. when he came in to office, those of us who were in the federal government were worried about sharing it with him, and now we have very good reason, on top of all the other data points, is that he could not be trusted with the nation's secrets, and we can't ever let it happen again. my question is not, what's in the information? i would agree with the other panelists. that information needs to still be protected if it was classified as highly as it was. my question is, how is trump possibly going to follow through on what's an obvious lie, that he had some sort of standing declassification order? that's clearly him spelling out what his defense going to be in court. i'm eager to see what that looks like. is it him writing it on a

cocktail napkin and backdating it? what's that going to look like? i'll be curious to see what sort of defense he mounts with the team he's got around him. >> rev, you have the longest history of everybody in this group with donald trump. known him longest, seen him as an operator, a player in new york, as a grifter, a brand merchant, a publicity hound, all that stuff. and people don't change. i mean, the things that -- you have been a great analyst of him because you've known him for so long and seen how he operated in various situations. this question that miles just raised is, i think, fundamental. you have people like john bolton who was on our air earlier this week saying, why did trump take these documents? i don't know, but he likes cool stuff. you know? he wants french fries. next day, he wants secret documents. and an amazing number of people believe -- like, trump says, i want it so i just take it. other people say, there's no doubt he had some scheme in place to benefit from it, monetize it or politically benefit from it.

somehow, this was a more elaborate grift of some kind. where do you come down on the basis of the way you know him, whether he's been a narcissist or trying to be machiavelli. >> i think both could be true at the same time. he is a narcissist, but if he sees any way he can cut a deal -- he wrote a book about making deals -- that's what he will do, and which side he's protecting or dealing with here, we don't know, but he's capable of both sides. well, he's incapable of not doing both sides, since you asked the question. and let's remember, as soon as he was in office, he had lavrov in the oval office and was dealing with some classified papers on his desk in the oval office right there. we covered it on this air. i don't know why we're so surprised. if a guy would brag to the head russian that was meeting with him representing putin about,

oh, yeah, these are some of the documents, he wasn't in office a couple of months then. yeah, he's going to take documents with him to mar-a-lago. and if he can find a way to monetize them, he will. if it's just about saying, hey, i'm still in and i can break -- the rules don't apply to me. he'll do that. he'll do both at the same time. the question is, as you said, time, we don't know what will happen in the judicial system. we don't know where this will go but one thing we know is there's some midterm elections. people can make sure that people that believe this is appropriate should not be elected to the senate or to the congress. people can decide in less than 90 days. >> one of my favorite things to do is scold people for engaging in false binaries like either/or. you just did it to me. no, both. he can be a narcissist, a baby, an idiot savant and machiavelli

all at once. harry, miles, tracy, and the rev, al sharpton, thank you for spending time with us on this friday. when we return, we will shift gears to ukraine where there is grave new concern over what's happening at a massive nuclear power plant, now under russian control. ssive nuclear power plant, now under russian control. i think i changed my mind about these glasses. yeah, it happens. that's why visionworks gives you 100 days to change your mind. it's simple. anything else i can help you with? like what? visionworks. see the difference.

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plant in europe is worrying not only ukrainians but officials around the world. according to ukrainian intelligence, russia could possibly be gearing up for an attack on the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern ukraine that the kremlin would seek to blame on kyiv. earlier this week, sources told nbc news that staff at the power plant had been ordered to stay home today amid reports that moscow is planning to -- on disconnecting the plant from ukraine's power grid, denying the country one of its major energy sources. concerns for the safety of the plant have grown internationally, with calls for a demilitarization around the site, calls that russia has rejected. this comes amid an uptick in attacks from pro-ukrainian forces in crimea. several explosions were reported at military stations and air bases in the russian-controlled region, while kyiv has not claimed responsibility for those explosions, the attacks could signal a renewed ability for ukraine's military, one that analysts say may -- may shift the dynamics of the war.

joining us now, nbc news foreign correspondent, meagan fitzgerald, live from kyiv. tell us about the latest on zaporizhzhia and where that very tense situation stands. >> reporter: yeah, absolutely, incredibly tense, incredibly serious situation that certainly appears to be escalating. we know that ukrainian energy officials have said that they have intelligence to suggest that russia is actively working towards shutting that nuclear plant down. we've talked to experts who say this is incredibly dangerous and incredibly complicated situation to try and shut down a plant and just one misstep, one accident, could lead to a leak at this nuclear facility, which then means that we could be looking at radioactive materials seeping out of the plant. a plume heading towards ukraine, going all throughout europe and even beyond. then we know that the u.n. secretary general is here in ukraine. he again has renewed calls, telling russia that it is absolutely important to send in

scientists, international scientists, inside that plant. that's a similar sentiment that's echoed on a call this morning between emmanuel macron of france and vladimir putin. now, reports say that putin was receptive to having inspectors go inside, but keep in mind that earlier today, we heard from russian minister officials who said, look, the time frame for anyone going inside that plant, any scientists around the world, would be sometime in the early part of september. ukrainian officials say, this is an urgent situation, and they don't have time to wait. they want to see international inspectors going inside that plant immediately. >> so, here's how "the new york times" characterizes it, meagan. i want to get -- we've been doing some kind of apocalyptic doom scrolling here on the show today, mostly about things in america, but we figured, if we're going to go abroad, let's

do some more of that. "the new york times" is certainly there. ukraine and russia blaming each other. ukraine has accused russia of installing military vehicles inside the facility and using it as tensions ratcheted up around the plant over the summer with both sides accusing the other of risking a nuclear disaster by targeting the facility. ukraine has described russia as using the power plant, the largest in europe, for blackmail, risking a calamity by stationing troops who shell ukrainian positions across the dnipro river, mr. putin echoing the positions as blame the shelling at the plant on ukraine, saying, it, quote, creates the danger of a large-scale catastrophe." you talked about the plume when we first started the conversation, but just sketch out for us, what's the worst case scenario here? what are we looking at here if the thing really spirals out of control? >> reporter: you know, that's why we continue to hear these calls from the president of ukraine, zelenskyy, along with

the u.n. secretary general, not being able to really press enough, just how critical this situation is. it's incredibly serious. i mean, just looking at what this power plant does, it powers some 4 million people in ukraine, giving them power. we are going to be heading into winter soon, so that certainly is a concern there. but then you take a look at the health risks. again, we're talking about radioactive materials that could seep out of this power plant and be carried away by the winds. experts say that that plume, obviously, it depends on just how much is released, but worst case scenario, we're talking about this nuclear material, this highly charged material just spreading throughout the entire country of ukraine and into europe and even beyond. there really is just no way of knowing, which is why there's this rush, this urge to try and get officials inside that plant, since obviously calls have not been listened to, to try and demilitarize the zone. but again, a very serious

situation that officials are watching closely, but at this point, it's up to russia to decide whether or not they're going to allow folks in and when that will be. >> let's hope emmanuel macron has some influence on vladimir putin. sometimes he's able to work his will a little bit, and he's obviously always fighting the cause of the good fight. meagan fitzgerald, thank you for your reporting from ukraine. we'll talk with our experts about what's happening on the ground there and from 30,000 feet, where things stand, why the last few weeks seem to have been going well for ukrainians, maybe, maybe, the tide is turning in their favor. back after this. or back after this.

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as we just mentioned, after a long slog, things over the course of the past few weeks have been looking slightly up for ukrainian forces as western aid in the form of rockets and other weapons has finally made its way to kyiv and bolstered ukraine's defenses on the battlefield there. another positive development for ukraine, last few weeks have also shown just how unorganized and inefficient russia has been in conducting the war as "the new york times" puts it, "vladimir putin was hoping to be in a better position by now. after he was defeated in his initial attempt to oust ukraine's government, his fallback goal became taking over eastern ukraine. that now seems unlikely to happen this year. russia is not even accomplishing its scaled-down goal. the russians are measuring progress in feet, not even miles at this point." joining us now, retired

four-star general barry mccaffrey, a former member of the national security council, now an msnbc military analyst and former top official at the united states state department, rick stengel, also an msnbc analyst. it's great to have you guys here. bring me home, you guys, as we try to get through -- we all need a drink on a friday night, right? general mccaffrey, there has been so much going on that all of us who really cared about the ukraine war and still do have been, you know, lot going on in this country and people have been distracted, so i just really -- the most important thing you can do for us is tell us where we stand now in the war, from your perspective. how -- is it the case that maybe things are starting to look a little bit more optimistic for the possibility of ukraine actually coming out of this whole imbroglio with a positive outcome? >> well, it's easier to say what's happening to the russians than the ukrainians. the russians are in a terrible mess. the economic constraints are

having a huge impact on their ability to fund and to equip their military forces. putin's stuck in a crack on, you can't declare general mobilization. he's running out of manpower. they're suffering huge casualties, maybe as many as 30,000 dead, and on the other hand, the biden administration is now about $10 billion into supporting security assistance to ukraine. they just released $775 million a few days ago to add to the heap. a lot of himars ammunition, more precision strike artillery. the ukrainians have brilliant tactical and operational leadership. they are now conducting deep operations with their himars rocket systems, got a range around 48 miles, and they're also using special forces to great effect on russian ammunition depots and airfields, et cetera, and assassinations, activities, so i think the russians are in trouble. the question is, where are the

europeans? they have backed off the intense support they had for ukraine. that's a worrying political change. >> yeah, and that's a very good question. i do want to read one more thing to you, general, just to get a sense of this, because the thing that we keep hearing about is just about the extent of russian losses, and here's a thing from the "new york times" that goes into some detail on that. russia making small gains in the east at extremely high cost. it quotes a top pentagon official, pointed out that russia's minuscule progress in the east has come at a very high cost, about 20,000 troop deaths and another 50,000 or so injuries. michael schwirtz calls these numbers "astonishing." those numbers are pretty astonishing, but it's going on like this for a long time, general mccaffrey. the presumption has been, russia, even if they suffer enormous losses, they can -- they have the patience and they can grind this out and outlast someone in a military conflict.

is it getting to the point where these losses are so high that russia may be ever getting close to what would be a breaking point for vladimir putin? >> i think they're close to a breaking point right now from a military point of view. i don't think he's capable of rounding up the young boys in leningrad and moscow and sends them to the front lines. he is scraping for manpower, syrians, the wagner group, mercenaries. he has lost a tremendous amount of his senior leadership trying to unscrew this massive tactical and operational plan. i would underscore the russians are in trouble. the longer this goes on, it seems to me, the more likely they are to start to crumble. putin can't back off. he is stuck. but the russian army is starting to unravel it seems to me. >> rick, all the military guys,

like general mccaffrey, the guys who know more than i ever will, they say, what we learned was that russia's military has turned out to be not a paper tiger, we had a wildly over estimated sense of its power. another thing we are finding out is that not just the military, but rrussia's spy corps is a mes according to "the washington post." in the final days before the invasion of ukraine, russia's security service began sending cryptic instructions to informants in kyiv. pack up. leave behind the keys to your homes. so certain were operatives that they would soon control the levers of power in kyiv, according to ukrainian and western security officials, that they spent the waning days before the war arranging accommodations in apartments and other locations for the planned influx of personnel. they failed to incapacity tate the government, foment any pro-russian groundswell or

interrupt president zelensky's hold on power. they couldn't or wouldn't convey such sober assessments to vladimir putin. rick, you remember whether we discovered the cia and america had wildly overestimated russia power during the cold war. is that what vladimir putin is learning? his spies, you could trust those guys, he ran those people for a while, that they failed him as badly as the military is? >> yes. that's a terrific "washington post" story. they put it well. did the spies not see the reality despite the pact that polling showed there was a lot of support among ukrainians to counter russia? did they know the truth and were they afraid to tell the authoritarian leader who didn't want to hear that? i don't know the answer. in fact, both of them are bad for vladimir putin. the fact that he either has

spies that can't tell reality or people who won't tell him the truth is a bad situation. i'm going to use this as my journalistic -- to bring things around to the doom scrolling and the theme of your show, there was a poll this past week that 40% of republicans say it either doesn't matter or isn't a big deal if vladimir putin and russia interfere in the midterms. that number, that 40% number of the republican party who say, russian interference isn't a big deal, has been consistent since 2018. if we let vladimir putin triumph in ukraine -- i don't want to be doom scrolling more or counting the dominos -- but then we can count on vladimir putin affecting the west, europe and affecting america in a bigger way than he ever has before. that's what is at stake here, not just freedom and democracy in the west, but freedom and

democracy in the united states. we have spent a lot of money, as general mccaffrey said, but that money is well spent. >> you went high up there, way up to olympus to give us that global view. it's not wrong, some of the things you said. it's an important perspective to keep in mind. it's the case that this war continues to be fought out inch by inch. i want to ask general mccaffrey one last thing. "the new york times" writes about odesa. it's putin's ultimate target. it's the big prize in the war and a personal obsession of mr. putin in the speech three days before ordering the invasion. he made clear his intention to capture criminals there and bring them to justice. since i was over there, i heard about odesa was an important fight.

ultimately, potentially, what would eventually, somewhere down the line, whether weeks, months or years in the future, it would be the battle that told the tale. is that your sense, general mcccaffrey, that we are heading towards a showdown in odesa? >> if it gets that far. i don't think he is content with just sealing off the black sea. i think he is after the whole country. he had to adjust his public optics, public diplomacy to explain the failure of the russian military offensive. at the end of the day, i think ukrainians are going to language on to odesa. he is not going to be able to close up the frontier to link up his forces. i might add another thing, which is important to underscore this nuclear power plant that's under attack by who, we're not sure. some of the systems are saying it's not consistent shelling but

a giant 11,000 person nuclear power plant with six reactors, two still online. i think the russians are going to disconnect the electrical grid. that's about a third of ukraine's electricity. then we're going to see some more economic pressure on ukraine. the nuclear power plant at zaporizhzhia is not vulnerable as chernobyl was. if there's a disaster -- getting through those steel and concrete domes would take an aircraft bomb. but there's also 2,200 metric tons of material stored on the ground. it's a flashpoint unlikely to affect all of western europe, but could end up contaminating 10, 20 kilometers around the nuclear power plant. >> wow. great. more reasons to be cheerful here on a friday afternoon.

general, rick, i loved your insight into the dynamics how of how an authoritarian regime works. thank you for spending time with us. quick break. coming up and we will be right back. ming up and we will e right back i gotta say moving in together has been awesome. no regrets. for you and emily. these are... amazing.

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