according to the "times," quote, the number ignited intense concern at the justice department and helped to trigger the criminal investigation that led fbi agents to swoop into mar-a-lago this month, seeking to recover more. a number of people briefed on the matter telling the "times," the former president personally went through 15 boxes beforehand before handing them over in january. quote, the highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archive officials to refer the matter to the justice department which, within months, convened a grand jury investigation. the government retrieved a second set of documents from the former president's aides in june, followed by a third set seized in the fbi search two weeks ago. according to the "times," the large number of documents and the amount of time they remained at mar-a-lago while being sought by the justice department, quote, suggested to officials the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling them, not fully

forthcoming with investigators, or both. sources telling the "times," investigators still are seeking more surveillance footage from mar-a-lago, a sign officials are looking into how the classified material was handle while improperly stored at the former president's estate. according to the "times," the fbi declined to comment. president trump's spokesman did not immediately respond. joining us now, justice and intelligence correspondent, ken dilanian, and former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official, chuck rosenberg. good morning to you both. ken, i'll start with you. nbc news is working to confirm all of this, a blockbuster story dropped last night by "the new york times". the top line, the 300 documents. 300 of them taken by donald trump, according to the "times'" reporting out of the justice department, is a pretty staggering number when you consider all the excuses donald trump has made. well, he just slipped some things into his briefcase, or they were planted by the fbi. no, it turns out boxes and boxes and boxes in the basement at

mar-a-lago. >> yeah, it's remarkable, willie. also fascinating to me is the fact that donald trump's lawyers yesterday in their lawsuit challenging the warrant and asking for a special master to go through the documents, essentially acknowledged the timeline that led up to the search, things they didn't have to admit. for example, that the justice department served a grand jury subpoena on them back in may. then also subpoenaed the surveillance tape from mar-a-lago. that had been reported elsewhere. now, the trump side has confirmed it. it sort of paints this picture of why they took this dramatic step of trying to obtain and obtaining this search warrant, which is, they asked nicely for the documents, they subpoenaed the documents, then they weren't satisfied. the trump lawyer also confirms that the senior justice department attorney in charge of counterintelligence went down to mar-a-lago with three fbi counterintelligence agents and

met personally with donald trump, asked to see the storage room, according to the trump side, he was accompanied by secret service agents at mar-a-lago, then later asked trump to put a better lock on the storage room. a lot of concern what was happening with the documents. you have to believe there were certain things omitted from this account by the trump lawyers, about exactly what the justice department was saying. but it paints this extraordinary picture of all these efforts by the u.s. government to try to get these classified documents back, which were unsuccessful, which led up to this dramatic search, which is criticized by donald trump and his allies as an overreach. you see, they tried to do a lot of stuff before they ended up getting this search warrant and swooping in with two dozen fbi agents. >> this is a matter of routine for most outgoing presidential administrations. you hand over your documents to the national archives. national archives, as we've seen and now confirmed by this "new york times," tried and tried and

tried to get them the right way, the conventional way. ultimately did not. they said two former white house officials, according to the "times," told donald trump, "you have to give this stuff up to the national archives." he responded by saying, "no, they're mine." they, of course, are not. they belong to the united states government. chuck, what do you make of this new reporting and just the lengths to which donald trump and members of his staff went to retain all these documents and keep them in a basement at mar-a-lago? >> that's right. willie, if you're acting in good faith, if you accidentally took stuff home, right, you would expect that it wouldn't come back in three batches, and perhaps more. if you made a mistake and someone told you you had classified information in the basement of your house, willie, you would go right down there, maybe with somebody to help you, and you would diligently go through everything. why does some stuff come back in january, some more stuff comes back in june, and it still takes an fbi search warrant to get the rest of it, or at least what we think is the rest of it?

so there's a couple of factors here if you're thinking about it as a federal prosecutor, right? how much stuff did he have? how long did he have it? why did he have it? when someone told him he had it, what steps did he take to return it? they don't seem to be all that, you know, diligent in that part of it. then what was the classification level, willie? there's different levels of classified information, from confidential to secret to top secret to top secret compartmented information. so in addition to knowing now that they returned about 300 documents, what was the classification levels of it? the thing that continues to concern me, if you're acting in good faith, is what took so long, and why sitcoms it coming in batches? i don't blame the fbi or department of justice one bit for trying to get this stuff back. it's a problem to have it in your basement. >> to say the least. mike barnicle, as this "times" report this morning points out and really gets at, this was a long process. this was not an overnight move,

as donald trump and others claimed. that fbi agents showed up at mar-a-lago and kicked down the door and started rummaging through his stuff. these were longstanding requests. the conventional way, the routine way to get some of the documents back, and as they trickled in beginning in january of last year, it was taking too long. they had to go in and, with a legal search warrant, get the rest of them. >> willie, as has been reported and as you just mentioned, one of the keys to this is the mindframe of the potential defendant here, donald j. trump, when he said, "the documents are mine. they belong to me." chuck, in terms of legal jeopardy, what are the pivot points here? what potentially could a former president be charged with, given what he's done? >> great question, mike. it'd be extraordinary to charge a former president, just as it was extraordinary to execute a search warrant on the home of the former president. the pivot point really for all these statutes, these criminal

laws, is intent, right? not to be too cliche, but what did the president know and when did he know it? did he understand he had classified information in the basement? did he understand he had to turn it over? nevertheless, did he retain it willfully or intentionally, despite the requirements of the law? for all of these cases, mike, not to sound overly legalistic, it turns on intent. what was in the president's mind? what did he understand? why did he act the way he wanted? it's always hard to prove, right? might be easy to prove he had classified information in his house. that's easy, right? the agents went in there, they saw it, took it, got it, brought it back. that's easy. but the why, right? why did he act the way he did? what was his intent? those will always be the pivot points in a criminal case, and it is always, mike, the hardest thing to prove. >> gene, these are not just the doc documents, the love letters president trump cherishes from

kim jong-un. we're talking about documents regarding national security. we don't know specifically what they are, but we know the sources of them, which our intelligence agencies and the national apparatus. >> it's fair, willie. i was wondering as i read the story last night, what happened to me or to you if we were found to have 300 classified documents, some in my basement, some in my bedroom closet, and the fbi found out about it. i think either you or i would be under the jail at this point. would certainly be charged. so i think there's been extraordinary patience on the part of the government, of the fbi and the justice department and the archives in seeking, very nicely, to get these documents back. my question for ken is about

this -- i guess it is a lawsuit that the trump side filed. what is the point of this? is this just more delay? it doesn't -- i don't understand what they think the difference between a special master looking at the documents and a sort of scrubbing team from the justice department looking at the documents would actually be. are they just playing for time? >> well, one thing they're doing is issuing sort of a public press release through a legal document, denouncing the search and calling it an overreach. saying that it violated donald trump's fourth amendment rights, which most experts look at that and say, that's just not the case. i mean, this was a lawfully approved search warrant by a magistrate judge who, by the way, reaffirmed yesterday in his written ruling that he thought there was ample probable cause to justify this search. he said there was evidence of multiple crimes at mar-a-lago. but on the special master thing, that's actually not an

unreasonable ask by the trump side. there was a special master in the michael cohen case when the federal government searched and seized some of his documents. it's really functionally the same thing. if you believe that the fbi filter team and doj filter team right now that's going through the documents, that is independent of the investigation, is acting in good faith and take out attorney-client privilege documents, a special master would do essentially the same thing. i'm not sure what the justice department position is going to be on this, but i can't imagine that it will give them great concern. because this kind of thing happens all the time. you know, they showed, by giving donald trump back his passports they deemed were not relevant to the search, that they're happy to do that. then i just want to add one thing, guys, in terms of the -- a lot of people might be looking at this and going, you know, he was president. he had access to all the secrets. so what if he accidentally had some classified documents or even intentionally in his house? but we're talking some documents

marked sensitive compartmented information. i've been asking around to reaffirm how sensitive those documents are. the reason they're compartmented is they could betray, and lik ly would betray, the sources of information, human or technical. the disclosure of those could get people killed. we're talking about the most sensitive documents. at least one set of documents there the government has. anytime there is a spill or disclosure in the real world of those documents, it is a massive firestorm. the federal government swoops in and does everything they can to shore this up. you can only look at them in special facilities, even within the capitol or other kinds of buildings. you have to go to a special room to look at those documents. that's how sensitive some of those documents allegedly in trump's possession were. >> yeah, and sitting at a beach and tennis club with a membership floating around, as well. katty, to fill in the blanks,

ken has been talking about this special master. trump and his team filed a lawsuit to block the department of justice from, quote, further review of seized materials before that special master is appointed. special master is an outside official selected by a judge to carry out a judicial matter on the court's behalf. in that lawsuit filed in the southern district of florida, it requests a more detailed receipt for the property seized from mar-a-lago in the search on august 8th, and asked anything not in the scope of the search warrant be returned. that's what we're talk about when we say special master, katty. >> yeah, and we've already had the passports returned. this sounds like a stalling tactic. chuck, can i ask a little more about this issue of intent? as you say, this is key here. a lot of trump supporters are saying, well, this is a former president. he'd like to have the souvenirs. so he kept the letter from kim jong-un at home. it was written to him, after all. there is sympathy among trump supporters with some of the material he was keeping.

how would we know or how would the justice department go about trying to find out what donald trump intended to do with those documents? did he intend to use them for some kind of profit in any way for himself, particularly, perhaps, these ones that are ultra secret documents, where i imagine there'd be an awful lot of concern? what's going to be the process there for finding out whether he intended to do something nefarious with him for his own benefit? because that would seem to be the key to whether this was really going to land him in legal jeopardy. >> great question, katty. so you're talking about an aspect of the case that concerns us, those of us who worked in this classified environment, the most. was there a transmission or an attempted transmission of these documents? in other words, if somebody, trump or anyone else, has classified information and wants to profit from it, or simply hand it over to a foreign power to the detriment of the united states, that's the most serious

type of mishandling. it is really, actually, espionage. so one way you prove that, of course, is by looking at the people around trump, who he spoke to, what they understood, and the conversations they had with the former president. katty, if i wanted to know what you were thinking about a particular topic, i could ask you, but maybe you wouldn't tell me or wouldn't tell me the truth. there are, i'd have to talk to all the people that talk to you, right? if i can't get it directly from you, for one reason or another, maybe you confided in someone else. maybe someone had an argument with you, katty, about how you were handling the classified information. they were so disturbed by what they learned from you, they wanted to pass it to the fbi. one of the reasons these investigations take a long time is you have to talk to a whole bunch of people. you may not be able to talk to mr. trump directly or get anything useful from him, or anything that's candid or honest from him, but you can talk to those around him. those who worked for him, worked

at mar-a-lago, those who visited him. perhaps he showed the documents to other people. perhaps he told other people what he intended to do with the documents. none of this is a sure-fire way to get to what he intended, but these are proxies to get to what he intended, particularly if you don't have access to him and his brain. >> extraordinary image as "the new york times" reports, of donald trump in late 2021 personally going through the boxes, deciding what to keep and what not to keep. chuck rosenberg, ken dilanian, thank you both for walking us through this. appreciate it. joining us now, senior political correspondent for "axios," josh, great to see you. you've been looking at the polling in the two weeks since the fbi searched mar-a-lago to get some of these documents back, and how it may or may not be impacting donald trump's potential political future, if he decides to run again. what does it look like? >> look, willie, what's bad for trump legally is good for trump politically, at least when it comes to the republican base.

there has been a whole slew of polling. the nbc poll you guys just did this weekend shows that more republicans than ever before, at least since he left office, are attached to him. the base, it really thrives against trump's sense of grievance against the federal bureaucracy, against the fbi, and he's kind of attached himself a lot more closely to his supporters. more and more republicans with looking at other candidates than ever before, ron desantis. you had in the nbc poll, 41% of republicans now see themselves much more closely connected to trump than the republican party itself. that's up by 7 points since the spring. this hurts trump politically in the big picture. certainly, if he faces additional legal troubles, this is not good news for trump politically. but among the base, among the most adamant republican voters, this latches him more closely with that base, and it helps him if he wants to run for president

with these republican primary voters. >> yeah, his supporters buying the narrative that he is the victim in this, even though it appears he is the one who took 300 classified documents, at least, home with him to mar-a-lago. josh, big primary day today. really interesting stuff going on across the country. look at the state of florida, democratic primary, to see who runs against ron desantis there. fascinating races here in the state of new york. you have two new york institutions in maloney and nadler going at it. somebody is going home from that. what will you be watching today? >> boy, the maloney/nadler race, two democratic party titans going up against each other. only one can win in that member versus member primary. that'll be the big race to watch. it does seem like jerry nadler has the late momentum. he got the endorsement of chuck schumer. he got the endorsement of "the new york times." nadler may have an advantage in the final homestretch. that's going to be a big race. there's another big race also in new york city between dan

goldman, who really got a lot of attention during the impeachment hearings, versus a whole lot of other, more progressive democrats in new york city. the moderate, eric adams swing of the democratic party is ascendant, and whether the progressive elements within the democratic party may be losing support. it is a progressive district, liberal district that voted heavily democratic. dan goldman has been running a more moderate democratic campaign, along the lines of eric adams in the mayor race. he is, right now, leading in the polls in that primary. >> josh, in terms of florida, you have an interesting contest on the democratic side. in the race to run against ron desantis, does nikki fried, the more progressive, have a chance against charlie crist, or does

crist have an advantage as you see things today? >> that is a fascinating primary because it pits someone who is more moderate, like charlie crist, a former republican governor, high name id, more moderate voting record in the house as a democrat, against nikki fried, who is trying to get momentum talking about roe v. wade being overturned, talking about apportion rights. she's more liberal. i think she'd have a tougher time making it a close race against governor desantis. we'll see where the democratic energy is in florida. is it with the more progressive side of the party? is the fact that roe v. wade being overturned has energized a whole lot of democratic voters? or is someone who is more establishment, who used to be a republican, can electability be the bigger factor for democrats in the race? >> also in florida tonight, val demings expected to make it official and become the nominee to run against marco rubio for

u.s. senate. that also a fascinating race. senior political correspondent at "axios," josh, thanks for being with us. ahead on "morning joe," "the washington post"'s david ignatius looking at donald trump's point man in his mar-a-lago fight against the so-called deep state. david will join us with his latest piece. also ahead, ukrainian officials fear increased russian attacks, as russia tries to blame ukraine for a car bomb that killed the daughter of a putin ally just outside of moscow. and we've spoken recently about the dangerous rhetoric coming from some top republicans targeting the irs. steve rattner will be here to explain how their war on the agency has cost the country billions of dollars. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪♪ i got into debt in college and, no matter how much i paid, it followed me everywhere.

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i know from my time running russiagate for devin nunes. we keep going back to it, but i'm trying to bring people back to it because this is what the mar-a-lago raid was about. there's documents in there that need to be made public, that were never released to the public when devin and i were trying to do that. that's exactly what president trump was doing when he was being a transparent president. >> that was former department of defense chief kash patel, talking about what kind of president trump was. he was speaking on the fbi search of mar-a-lago, claiming it took place because there were documents that needed to be made public. joining us now, columnist for "the washington post," david ignatius. we show the clip because you have a new piece up about kash patel and his role in all this. let's take one step back and remind people who he is in the trump orbit. >> so, willie, i wrote in april of last year a piece for "the

washington post" in which i described kash patel, who began his recent career as a staffer for the head of the house intelligence committee, devin nunes, as being the zelic figure, if you remember the movie "zelic." in donald trump's campaign against the deep state, he keeps reappearing in different guises. in 2017, he's the leading investigator for devin nunes, trying to show the russia investigation is a hoax. 2019, he joined the white house staff, working for trump as a counterterrorism adviser. 2020, he is sent to the office of the director of national intelligence. this is chief deputy, really leading the effort to place trump rules for the intelligence agencies. he then is nominated in 2020 or pushed by trump to be deputy director of the fbi. william barr says in his recent memoir, "over my dead body." that's how opposed he was to

kash patel. he saw him as an instrument of trump and this war which attorney general barr thought was misconceived against the so-called deep state. then there was an effort to appoint kash patel deputy director of the cia. the end of 2020, he was initially proposed, gina haskell, initially, saying patel would come instead. that's when haskell said, "i'll quit if you do that." now, kash patel is coming back for the documents at mar-a-lago. trump named him as one of the two representatives he wanted to deal with the national archives in this early summer but before the search warrant was executed. going back to may, before we

ever knew anything about subpoenas or search warrants at mar-a-lago, patel was publicly making the case that trump had essentially unilateral right to declassify materials as president and was continuing to argue that there were materials from the early days of the russia investigation that would show that the government, the fbi, was working with the media, with the hillary clinton campaign, to manufacture an investigation. this long running argument that trump and his supporters had, that it was a hoax. in these instances, you find the same person, kash patel. he is a fascinating, recurring figure, and now one of those making the motion for trump. generally, he is really the captain of this ship of classified material. >> david, i'm always interested in what people like kash patel

do once they leave administrations, and what he's been doing since leaving the white house? what is his day job? is he caught up now in the legal investigation into all of those boxes? is he somebody the doj is wanting to question? >> i can't speak to who the doj is going after. those are precisely the issues that they're working very hard to keep the public from knowing. i have no evidence that he is. what kash patel has been doing since he left the government has been working with donald trump. he is a director of the company that owns truth social, which is trump's effort to replace twitter as a conservative social media platform. he has become increasingly a spokesman and defender of trump's prerogatives as a former president, dealing with classified material. and he continues to make the basic arguments republicans have been making since 2017, that the russia investigation was ginned

up by democrats. you can hear him on conservative talk radio, on fox news, making those arguments almost every week. >> kash patel, the argument goes that donald trump on his way out of office just declassified everything, so that the people, the american people, could have access to it. he is making the transparency argument. fascinating. david, there's news out of ukraine. russian authorities are blaming ukraine for the car bombing over the weekend that killed the daughter of a russian ultranationalist and ally of vladimir putin. in a statement yesterday, the russian federal security service said the attack on darya dugina, quote, was prepared and committed by the ukrainian intelligence agencies. russian officials allege the attack was carried out by a ukrainian woman, their story goes, traveling with her young daughter, who then fled into neighboring estonia. kyiv denies involvement in the killing. darya's father, alexander dugin, is calling for revenge. in a statement yesterday, he

wrote, quote, our hearts yearn for more than just revenge or retribution. that would be too small, not according to russia's style. we only need our victory. my daughter laid her maiden life on the altar of victory. win, please. russia is planning new strikes on ukrainian infrastructure and government facilities soon. obviously, david, russia earned no trust and deserves no trust when it says this is ukraine's doing, the death of this young woman. what are you hearing about what they may be using it for, though, in terms of a justification for further and escalated attacks? >> willie, i think that's essentially what is going on here. this attack, whoever did it, and we just for the moment have a russian allegation, ukrainian denial. we don't know the facts, but the attack is being used as a pretext for what will be further escalation. this war is getting nastier and

tighter. poms are going off in areas the russians thought were safe. ukrainians are learning to use long-range, precisely targeted weapons to go after russian command and control. the number of russian officers, including generals who have been killed in recent weeks, i'm told by my sources at the pentagon, is extraordinary. so we're in new phase of this campaign. russia is the target. they're furious about it. there is pressure on putin toha. ukrainians are pushing against crimea, an area they'd left untouched. they're doing everything they can to make sure southern coast the new battle space in this war. they would like to free their key coastal city of odessa from russian threats. i think in the days and weeks ahead, we're going to see this terrible war, which has already led to so many deaths, go into a new, even more dangerous and deadly period.

>> mike, the 31st anniversary of ukraine's independence from the soviet union is tomorrow, and there is some concerns vladimir putin may have that date circled on the calendar as a moment to escalate russian attacks inside ukraine. >> willie, as we approach the advent of fall and soon to be winter, and as david pointed out, this increasingly widening war in ukraine's increased sufficiency in weapon and increased use of weaponry, my question is down the road, the target has been odesa and will be, but what point do russians say, well, winter is coming. we can jack up europe with the increased energy prices, but we have to go for odesa now. we have to get odesa before winter sets in?

>> mike, i think both sides have been thinking they need to make progress before the winter freeze, if you will. the russians would like to consolidate the areas that they've advanced on. they've had very slow progress, really since they went back on the offensive after their disastrous campaign to take kyiv. the ukrainians felt in august and september, they needed to show progress to their own people and to their allies in europe, in being able to push russians back. it is a different kind of war. ukrainians' success has been, in part, they're on the defensive. now, they're on the offensive. they need new weapons. we've been sending new and different weapons that will help them in the offensive. special gear to clear minefields laid by the russians in areas they control. new anti-weapons used for close-up use in battle, as an army pushes the other army back.

we're going to see, not trench warfare, but war of movement, as the ukrainians try to move the russians back before winter, to show, as i said, show their own population in the world, we can do this. we can actually win this war. then we'll have a period where the leverage on both sides will be economic. it'll be a cold winter for europe. it'll be a cold winter in russia, as well, because of all the cutbacks in supplies for the russians. then we'll come back in the spring, and i think the big question, willie, is whether the ukrainians will begin to have u.s. weapons. they're already said to be training with the u.s. ground attack planes. will their old migs, the russian air weapons they've still been using, will those begin to be replaced by nato weapons from the u.s. and other countries? that would make a different war next year even more ferocious

than the onewe've seen. >> that's the plan, with the weapons streaming into the country. david ignatius, thank you so much. we'll read your piece at thewashingtonpost.com. the inflation reduction act includes $80 million for the irs. the agency says it can recover $200 billion in additional tax revenue. steve rattner is here next to explain where that money will be coming from, when "morning joe" comes right back. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ "shake your thang" by salt n pepa

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are they going to have a strike force that goes in with ak-15s already loaded, ready to

shoot some small business person in iowa? >> is the irs gearing up for war in our country? is nancy pelosi trying to start a nuclear war in asia? is there an effort by the national security state to stoke violence in a civil war at home? >> those agents are designed to come after, you not the billionaires and the big corporation. 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. they are going to focus on basically parts of the country that don't support what the regime is trying to do. >> those aren't nutty podcast hosts. those are top, prominent republicans and donald trump allies, spreading lies and conspiracy theories about the new irs funding in the recently passed inflation reduction act. there will be no armed tax agents coming after everyday americans. officials say most of the new $80 billion in funding will hire

desk workers to enforce existing laws on the highest earners. let's bring in former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner, with his charts. irs long has been a target, and it's had an impact. >> yeah, that's right, willie. the republicans, in particular, have been going after the irs for quite a while over a couple reasons. one is they just don't want to pay taxes, so the less of the irs there is, the fewer taxes, perhaps. the other, of course, was the whole brouhaha during the obama administration, about whether the irs was targeting right-wing organizations. let's just take a look at the consequences here on this chart. as you can see, since 2010, there's been a sharp increase in overall government spending. that's the turquoise line. this is inflation adjusted, so it was keeping track with inflation. then, of course, you had the huge covid upsurge. without that, the government as a whole was spending along at or

above inflation. the darker line is the irs. they've been squeezing the irs' budget for well more than a decade. adjusted for inflation, it is down 25%. when you look at the chart on the right, which is the irs' actual workforce, you can see the consequence of that. it's gone down by a per capita basis, relative to the size of america, 45%. there are 45% fewer agents for every american than there was a bit more than a decade ago. so they are trying to starve the beast, in a nutshell. >> yeah, and particularly now after the pandemic, people leaving government jobs, if you filed for a tax return a couple months ago, you may not see it until the end of this year or next. they're understaffed. that's part of what this hiring is about. your next chart, steve, talks about audits for the wealthy, which is one of the goals, most people agree is probably a good idea. the government checks up on the wealthiest americans. but those rates have plummeted,

as well. >> yup. as you made the point, processing paperwork has been slowing down, and this money will speed that up. perhaps equally as importantly, as you also just said, because of the shortfall of funding, there has been an enormous drop in the number of audits, particularly of wealthy people. so this chart shows you four different income groups and what's happened to them. if you look at the turquoise group at the top, people who made over $10 million a year, they had a 22%, almost a 1 in 4 chance of being audited back in 2010. today, they have less than a 4% chance of being audited today. give you another example from the third line down, which is people who make over $1 million. back in 2010, there were 41,000 audits of them. today, there's 14,000 audits of them. part of the problem for the irs has been, these audits are complicated, not surprisingly,

and they simply have not had the personnel to do them. so you've had this dramatic drop in the rate of someone with a lot of money getting audited. >> last chart, steve, is about misreporting. what are we talking about here, and the fact it rises with the income level? >> first of all, if you think you only have a 4% chance of getting audited, you presumably are likely to take more chances in terms of the kinds of deductions you claim and how you report your taxes. you can euphemistically call some of this misreporting. you can call it tax avoidance. even call it tax invasion. it also goes up dramatically with income. so you can see all the way around the right, someone who made $10 million or more, on average, and this is using irs data that larry summers and a colleague collected and turned into a very good, effective study. but irs data shows if you made over $10 million a year, you, on

average, quote, misreported, unquote, $1.4 million of your income. if you drop almost all the way down to the left and take someone who made $200,000 to $500,000 a year, they, quote, misreported more than 7.5% of the year. $9,000 for the person at the bottom. $1.4 million for the person at the top. that's because more sophisticated people have more ways, frankly, to misreport income. it's estimated the new $80 billion you referenced will produce $200 billion of tax collections that the irs would not otherwise have gotten. larry summers and others believe the actual number is considerably more. it'll really help the federal budget deficit. more importantly, we need to restore a sense of fairness on the part of americans, as to who is paying taxes and who isn't. this kind of enforcement, hopefully, will help americans understand that everybody is

going to pay their fair share. >> steve, the point of this new money is really to go after the wealthy taxpayers who are avoiding paying taxes, those millionaires you talked about. is there an income cut-off, essentially, we're looking at? are they really going to focus on income earners above a certain number and not so much below a certain number? if so, what is that number? >> they haven't done that, gene, to the best of my knowledge anyway. when you get to the lower incomes, a lot of processing of returns is done automatically. so they don't need quite as much help to deal with their issues. it'll be processed automatically. you'll get a computer generated letter. if you owe some taxes, you'll pay them. upper incomes, and no particular

cut-off, these returns can go to hundreds of paujpages. it takes manual labor for the irs to go through them one-by-one and negotiate with sophisticated taxpayers. what the irs does is it uses a variety of things in the computer system to kick out returns where it thinks things have not been done, shall we say, on the up and up, and it'll target that. more to the upper end. it is a little like the old willie sutton joke, why do you rob banks? it's because that's where the money is. >> "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner bringing us the charts on the irs. thank you so much. appreciate it. coming up next, herschel walker, the republican nominee for senate in georgia, argues against the newly passed funding to combat climate change, asking an audience quote, don't we have enough trees around here? we'll try to walk through that argument next.

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they talk about the green new deal. you know, climate change. i'm going to help y'all with that real quickly, and i'm going to do it in the wrightsville way, so you can understand what i'm saying. we, in america, have some of the cleanest air and cleanest water of anybody in the world. what we do, we're going to put, from the green new deal, millions and billions of dollars to clean our good air up. so all of a sudden, china and india ain't putting nothing in cleaning their situation up. their bad air. but since we don't control the air, our good air decided to float over to china, bad air. so when china gets our good air, their bad air got to move. so it moves over to our good air

space. now, we got to clean that back up. >> that's your republican senate nominee in the state of georgia, herschel walk e, last month with his take on how air pollution works. now, walker is criticizing the democrats' new law that commits billions of dollars to climate spending, arguing, too much money is, quote, going to trees. the former football star said, quote, they continue to try to fool you that they are helping out, but they're not. a lot of money, it's going toward trees. don't we have enough trees around here, he asked. the georgia candidate stood by his comments in a tweet last night, writing, yes, you heard me right. joe biden and reverend warnock -- his opponent -- are spending $1.5 billion on urban forestry and raidsing taxes on those making under $200,000 to pay for it. yes, i have a problem with that. gene robinson, you're writing today about the senate candidates. blake masters, dr. oz, herschel walker along them. on the one hand, it is comical

to listen to herschel walker speak at some of these events. on the other hand, there should be some standards, should there not? call me old fashion, to serve in the united states senate. >> you are so old fashioned. >> sorry. >> if you -- >> it's a lost cause. >> -- look at the recent roster of the senate, that ship has sailed, i'm afraid. herschel walker would absolutely be a new low. i guess to take a position of anti-tree is certainly something new in politics. in our politics at least. it's insane. he has absolutely no idea about how, like, air works and how trees work and to say nothing of climate change. but there he is, he could be the next senator from georgia. now, he is trailing reverend warnock right now by a few

points, according to polls. again, it's a pretty close race. he's actually doing better in his race than some of the other candidates that donald trump imposed on the republican party, like dr. oz, like jd vance and potentially blake masters out in arizona. >> yeah. so, mike barnicle, gene makes the important point, that you may laugh but herschel walk ser walker is right there in a dead heat with senator warnock, neck and neck. herschel walker, a football icon with name recognition, unlike anybody else in the state of georgia. played at the university of georgia, won the heisman trophy, celebrated figure there. you heard it as the rally, talking about good air and bad air, getting rousing applause for that explanation. he very well could be in the united states senate. >> willie, there is no more history.

history is what happens right now at the snap of a finger. herschel walker, rushed over 5,000 yards as a georgia bulldog, seem to be the best credential he has in terms of running for office. that man, as you pointed out, won the heisman as a junior at georgia. those are credentials that clearly stand out in his race against raphael warnock. it is accurate to say he could indeed become a member of the united states senate. as gene pointed out, look at the membership of the united states senate today. compare it to the composition of the united states senate 10, 20 years ago. you really can't in terms of credentials, people elected to office who think of the nation first, national interest, rather than their selfish, political interests. that's where we are today. that's a reality check. the ultimate reality check is herschel walker could indeed become a united states senator.

god help us. >> icon in the state of georgia and also has to be said, hand-picked by donald trump. donald trump drafted herschel walker out of georgia to play for the team he owned in the usfl in 1983. with the support of donald trump and his name recognition in georgia, he is doing pretty well. still ahead this morning, the new reporting from "the new york times" just over night, revealing former president trump had over 300 classified documents in the boxes at mar-a-lago. plus, beto o'rourke will join us. we'll ask him about his campaign for governor, and a new texas law slated to go into effect this week that would ban abortion after conception. also this morning, it is primary day in florida, new york, and other states across the country. steve kornacki will be at the big board telling us about the races you need to be watching tonight. we're coming right back on "morning joe." it means lower drug costs for millions and ramps up production of american-made clean energy,

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dot in washington. here across the east coast. welcome back to "morning joe," it is tuesday, august 23rd. i'm willie geist. katty kay, eugene robinson, mike barnicle all still with us as we dive right into the big overnight development into the justice department investigation looking at donald trump. sources now telling "the new york times" the government has recovered more than 300 documents marked as classified from the former president's estate in florida. the first batch returned in january included more than 150 classified documents. according to the "times," quote, the number ignited intense concern at the justice department and helped trigger the criminal investigation that led fbi agents to swoop into mar-a-lago this month, seeking to recover more. a number of people briefed on the matter telling the "times," the former president personally went through 15 boxes beforehand beforehanding them over in january. quote, the highly sensitive nature of some of the material

in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the justice department which, within month, had convened a grand jury investigation. the government retrieved a second set of documents from the former president's aides in june, followed by a third set seized in the fbi search. according to the "times," the large enough of documents and the amount of time they remained at mar-a-lago while being sought by the justice department, quote, suggested to officials the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling them, not fully forthcoming with investigators, or both. sources tell the "times" investigators are still seeking more surveillance footage from mar-a-lago, as well. a sign officials are still looking into how the classified material was handled while improperly stored at the former president's home. the "times" said the fbi declined to comment, and president trump's spokesman did not immediately respond. let's bring in nbc news and msnbc legal analyst andrew weisman. former general counsel for the fbi and served as legal prosecutor in the mueller

special counsel's investigation. also with us, former cia and fbi special agent, tracy walder, adjunct faculty of criminal justice at texas christian university. good morning to you both. andrew, let me begin with you. just from an fbi point of view and legal point of view, both of which you have, what do you make of the revolution in the "times" that 300 classified documents were found at mar-a-lago? >> yesterday was a big news day because you had "the new york times" reporting. you also had john solomon issuing a letter from the archives in may that was also damning. and you had former president trump's filing for a special master. there was a lot of news. none of it was good for the president. "the new york times" reporting i found most interesting because of one particular sentence, which is that several sources

said that when the archives were trying to get documents back, that it was the former president, donald trump, who personally reviewed the boxes in deciding what to return. that means he also decided what not to return. and we know from the archive, not just from "the new york times," that in those 15 boxes were substantial number of classified documents at the highest level. that is tssci, which is, you know, compartmented program, special access programs. they constituted just within the 15 boxes, 700 pages of classified documents. so that is incredibly damning. if you are a prosecutor, you really look for evidence of what the former president did personally. if the doj either knows about or

is soon to interview those people who were sources for "the new york times," they're going to have a substantial criminal case. >> tracy, the timeline goes something like, you have the national archives saying, "hey, guys, trump officials, trump aides, you forgot to leave us under the presidential records act all the documents from the white house. where are they?" finally, in january, some of them are turned over, 150 or so, according to the "times." as they start to go through the document, they say, "a lot of this is classified information," so they refer it to the justice department. as a former agent, when you hear there are 300 documents stashed away at a country club in south florida, what do you hear? >> you know, i think that the bottom line is something that hasn't been talked about a lot. when classified information is mishandled on that scale, that large of a scale, people die. we forget about our sources and methods and assets and military and all of the things that those

classifications really work to protect. when i'm hearing there are 300 documents and things like andrew was mentioning, that trump went through personally and chose not to give back, we're really forgetting that there's lives behind this information. >> andrew, to pick up on a conversation we were having earlier in the program with chuck rosenberg, if the justice department can't prove that donald trump was intending to do something nefarious for his own benefit with these classified documents, could he still, nonetheless, be in some kind of legal jeopardy? if so, what? >> yeah, so the answer to that is, legally, it is irrelevant that he was not -- or found or proved to actually have disseminated the documents to a third party. the government doesn't have to

wait until there is even more harm to our national security, that these documents are given to foreign adversaries, for instance. all of the criminal statutes that were cited by the government in the search warrant -- and, by the way, there are more. the government is not limited to just relying on those statutes -- don't require that the government prove that there was actual dissemination. although, i do think, in this case, they would be able to because dissemination could be to any third party. that could include counsel, the people transporting the boxes. all of these people, by the way, we know did not have authority, were not cleared to get classified documents. that we know from the archives in their back and forth president trump counsel. they pointedly say, we're happy to share and have you review

unclassified documents because you don't have clearance to see anything else. i don't think that's a speed bump for the government in deciding whether to bring a criminal case. >> mike, we've had two week of excuses and explanations for why the documents ended up at mar-a-lago. the bottom line is, there is no good or legal explanation for snatching 300 classified documents and putting them in your basement. >> no. especially, it is even more dangerous when you consider the fact that the former president has apparently on the record said, "those documents are mine. they belong to me, not the united states government. not to the archives." tracy, in just reading about the voluminous numbers of documents taken, some so highly classified according to the reporting they can only be read in a private, secure setting, my question to you is, the release of these documents, so even talking about these documents at dinner at

mar-a-lago or wherever, with whom, the idea of methods of research, of how the information and the intelligence got into these documents, wouldn't the exposure of this put so many potential informants, agents worldwide, at supreme risk of losing their lives? >> you are absolutely right. you hit the nail on the head there. i worked for the cia. i worked in a skiff in the fbi because i worked counterintelligence here. perhaps this will explaining the ripple effect. at the agency, i worked counterterrorism. however, there was something misused by colin powell on the floor of the u.n., to justify the war. portions of the chart we made were not properly redacted and were mishandled. as a result, we lost a lot of assets that we had. the reality is, we were not able

to then track other terrorists that we were following through nose assets. they went ahead and blew up a train in spain. so, really, that's the ripple effect that this has, when our sources and our methods and this type of information is mishandled. >> andrew, my question is, what about the unclassified documents? there are unclassified documents in there, too. don't those also belong to you, me, and the american people, not to donald trump? and is that not a -- maybe not as much of a crime as having the compartmented information, but isn't that theft? didn't he steal those documents from us? >> absolutely. the crime is -- the federal crime is 18 usc 1461 for the nerds who want to look it up. that governs if you steal government property. that would comply -- that would

require compliance by any former government official, including the former president, and it applies to classiied or unclassified documents. one of the thing that is the national archives made clear is these are not your documents. i think the motion that the former president made yesterday, where he asked for a special master, has a fatal flaw in it. because one of the things he doesn't address is nothing needs to be sifted because none of the documents are actually the former president's. these all belong, whether classified or not classified, to the national archives. we all know, tracy and i, when we left government, you know what we took with us? nothing. because the documents we were working on were not ours. they belong to the public. especially if you are the former president, these are of historical importance, and that's why there is a congressional statute that requires that these be transferred to the archives. >> andrew, just to put fine

point on that, it is a question a lot of people are questioning, does the classification matter? if the documents were taken, isn't that a crime already, regardless of what level of classification they fall under? >> yeah, absolutely. so the statutes don't require it, as we were just talking about. there is a crime of just taking government property. it also isn't even a question for the discretionary decision that has to be made within the department. isn't it less culpable if the president were found factually -- that's a big if -- to have declassified some of the documents? those documents were just as important to the national security, as tracy pointed out, and carried all of the risks thatarticulated, whether the former president labeled them classified or not classified. they all had that same sensitive i and all put our national security as americans at risk.

>> and sat there more than a year before they were turned over in january. former general counsel for the fbi, andrew weissman. and former fbi and cia agent tracy walder. good to see you. we talked about records "the washington post" obtained, showing legal experts were hired to breach voting machines following the 2020 election. there is a follow-up to the election. system data from at least two states reportedly was shared with conspiracy theories and right-wing election deniers. attorneys working to overturn the election, including sidney powell, hired a georgia computer firm to put the sensitive information from dominion voting machines onto a server. the data was downloaded dozens o times. accord the downloaders were accounts associated with a texas meteorologist who appeared on sean hannity's radio show, a podcaster who suggested political enemies should be

executed, former pro surfer saying the 2020 election was manipulated, and a self-described former seduction and pickup coach who claims also to have been a hacker. copies of election software and other data could help people who are trying to compromise similar systems. joining us now, investigative reporter at "the washington post," jon swaine. good to have you back with us this morning. i'll ask you the same question i asked you off your original story, which is, why do these conspiracy theories or any private citizen, by the way, have access to voting machines? how did they get into these machines, and why were they allowed to? >> it's a great question and what people ask me when the stories come out. in georgia, there was a case of a local elections official who believed donald trump's claims about the election being stolen. she allowed these people into the office to copy files,

because she thought they could put the election right. in michigan, kind of quietly, without people noticing, this group of people obtained a court order from a judge. she was a former republican state senate leader. issued a court order granting them access, and they arrived in the county to collect forensic data from the election machines. >> so if i know the right person or i find the right official or judge, i can effectively hack into a voting machine and get all that data. so in this specific case you're writing about in the new piece this morning, who were the people behind it, and what were they up to exactly? >> the firm behind this is a little known atlanta data forensics firm. it's named sullivan stickler. basically after the election, sidney powell and an attorney for the trump campaign hired

this company. they charged $20,000 or more a day for their team to go into the office, copy these files. without people realizing it was happening at the time, they dispatched investigators from this firm to offices in michigan, in georgia, in nevada, possibly in other states that we haven't yet learned about, and before people realized what was happening, they had basically opened up these computers in these states, county offices. they copied disk images from election servers. they copied memory sticks with records of votes and ballots. all sorts of images which go together to create state election systems. typically, these are very tightly controlled. you know, you can only get access to these if you are entitled to it, if you are the county election supervisor, for example. these people did not have that

authorization. in michigan, they had a court order. in georgia, it's far less clear they had the authority to actually go and do this. the georgia bureau of investigation has now opened a criminal investigation to see whether any crimes were committed when they sort of interfered with potentially this computer system. >> jon, i've spent time with election officials down in georgia, and like you say, i moon, to get into the room where the voting machines are being held, you have to have a special badge. only certain people allowed in there. it's kept in -- it's under very close control. to get into the building itself, you have to be regregistered. it's not like you can waltz in and make away with any computer. what has been done since the breaches were found to ensure that security is tightened even

further, so americans heading into 2024 can be reassured in michigan and georgia, the computer systems are actually solid and regular and as they should be and haven't been tampered with? >> i think what we're seeing in these states is that the state, secretary of state and attorney generals have gotten wise to the possibility, the potential that people loyal to donald trump, people who believe conspiracy theories about the election being stolen, may try to get into the offices. we're seeing messages sent out to county offices, municipal offices, to remind them, i think, of the protocols regarding the machines, who is entitled to access them and who is not. the states worked really quick to realize this was going on. in small rural counties where, you know, not many people vote, be you the machines they use there could tell the people how machines are used elsewhere. so i think the state authorities are really stepping in now and

trying to seize back control and oversight of who is getting access to the machines. >> remains staggering, as i read all your reporting, that people can get that close and get information out of voting machines. "the washington post"'s jon swaine, thank for bringing your latest investigation. appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," beto o'rourke will be here to talk about his bid to unseat governor greg abbott. and a restrictive new abortion bill slated to go into effect in texas in two days. plus, two current members of congress facing off in a new york primary. they're old friends, but it is getting ugly. also this hour, one of the leading democrats for florida's gubernatorial nomination is a former republican. we'll get a live report on charlie crist's campaign. first, our next guest says americans are dangerously divided and not just over donald trump. matt lewis joins us to explain why, when "morning joe" comes right back.

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but, at upwork, we found him. he's in adelaide between his daily lunch delivery and an 8:15 call with san francisco. and you can find him, and millions of other talented pros, right now on upwork.com beautiful morning in chicago, where it is 6:24 in the morning. dr. anthony fauci announced yesterday in december he will leave his post as president biden's top medical adviser, and the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. dr. fauci has led that organization for 38 years and served seven presidents of both parties. here's what he said last night about what may be next for him. >> it's never really a good time to leave, but you have to leave sometime. i have been wanting to pursue another chapter of my career, particularly to do things, be

they lecture or write or get involved in situations where i can serve as hope and inspiration, to encourage young people to go into public service, particularly in the arena of science, medicine, and public health. >> dr. fauci talking to rachel maddow last night. gene, a lot of people came to know, obviously, dr. fauci in the last 2 1/2 years at the start of this pandemic. he was the face of the messaging, as he was pushing strategically and diplomatically against a president who often was pushing in the wrong direction. but this is a guy who, as i said, for 38 years servd as the director and got the presidential medal of freedom from president bush for his work on hiv aids and the program that turned the tide against aids in africa. quite a career. >> yeah. tony fauci has given this nation an extraordinary career of public service, spanning half a century. it does go all the way back to the aids crisis, his work, you

know, in this country and in the pepfar program that saved lives in southern africa. the ebola crisis. the anthrax crisis. you know, he's been there throughout. i don't think it is an exaggeration to say that there are millions of human beings alive today who would not be alive if not for the work that dr. fauci did, coordinated, and led. he's just extraordinary. it was weird and tragic and just awful that he became -- he came under attack, under political attack, for the most apolitical work i could imagine. he is not a political person.

he has served presidents, both republican and democratic. he's all about the science. he's all about keeping the nation and the world healthy. i just salute him on this career. i eagerly anticipate what his next steps are. i hope he takes a few days off. >> yeah. even, mike, dr. fauci himself has said, in many ways, he's been working the last 2 1/2 years, but it's been bizarre, to be attacked from all these corners of the country for suggesting you should wear a mask or that you should keep 6 feet of distance, as they did at the beginning, trying to feel their way through a pandemic. he became the face of conspiracy theories and everything else for a not small sliver of our population. >> willie, i would submit that anthony fauci's life and career is uniquely and sadly a story for our times today.

for 40 years, over 40 years, actually, he has been a career government employee. he has been making the salary of a gs-18 or whatever the rank is, a career government employee. he didn't leave for private industry, for a drug company to make millions in stock and income. he committed himself to aids. he committed himself to every unique virus and plague that has come along across those 40 years. and his reward for announcing his retirement was a list of threats issued by republicans in the united states senate and the united states house, when they take control. they'll have anthony fauci up there every day. they are going to be prosecuting him, not asking him questions. they're going to be prosecuting him for doing what? for using his life and his skill and his ambition toward eradicating disease. they're going to prosecute him

for being successful in that task. that's what times we are living through right now. >> as i said, you can ask president george w. bush what he thinks about dr. fauci and what he did to save a lot of people from hiv and aids. our next guest calls the nation's current political divide, part of what we have been talking about, dangerous, and it is not only because of donald trump. "the daily beast's" matt lewis writes, in part, artifacts confirm this predates trump. take, for example, this 2014 piece in "the washington post," which quotes someone named ollie, who had this to say on facebook. i don't want anything to do with someone who would vote romney. i'd take their support for republicans as a personal attack on my right to control my body. friendship can't control this. it'd be understandable if this piece were written in 2021 after trump attempted to overturn a free and fair election.

what interests me, says matt, is, first, this dogmatic attitude is coming from the left, which flies in the face of the old stereotype about liberals being open-minded, free spirits. second, the political figure who was so outrageous and evil as to warrant cutting off friends and family is mitt romney. matt lewis joins us now. flush this out a little bit. obviously, donald trump brought a lot to the surface in 2015 and '16 that was already there in america. >> that's right, willie. so the impetus for this was there was a new generation lab poll, i think done in conjunction with nbc, that showed there were college students today who didn't want to be dorm roommates with people of an opposing party, who didn't want to date or marry people of an opposing party. i think the assumption was that this is a new phenomenon, and likely it had something to do with trump. actually, that would make sense. unfortunately, you know, i started thinking, like, i think

i've heard this story before. i feel like i've seen this reported over and over again over the years. i did some poking around on the google machine, and it turns out 2014 was a really big year of people talking about this. it's not something that trump created. i think trump is probably accelerating it. i think trump is maybe a symptom of it, but it's been a long time coming. at least since about 1960, we've had a trend of people saying that they don't want to marry somebody of the opposing party. they don't even want to be friends with somebody of the opposing party. interestingly, willie, it does seem that the data indicates liberals are more likely to be the ones cutting off other people. again, i think that might make some sense in a post-donald trump world. but this is something that was happening when, you know, the evil mitt romney, a guy i think

most of us think is, you know, whether we voted for him or not, a decent, nice guy. this pre-dates trump. i think there's a whole bunch of interesting, weird things that that may say about who we are. >> matt, i remember a really interesting pew survey from 2015. it was during the 2016 campaign that looked at the divided nature of america and came up with the figure that about 30% of republicans think democrats were a threat to the nation. about 30% of democrats thought republicans were a threat to the nation. it wasn't just they disagreed with them, they actually see people from the other party as a threat to the security of the country. i'm willing to bet that that figure has grown from 30% since 2016. while trump is not the cause of this, and you're right, it's been around for a while and you can see the signs of it, i think it's accelerated, the anecdotal evidence and polling suggest

it's accelerated within the last couple years. so do you think it is accelerated? what would put the brake on it? because i'm not sure at this point even trump retiring from public life would put the brakes on the kind of angry and potentially violent division we're seeing in the country. >> yeah, i think this helps us. it doesn't answer all the questions, but i think thinking about this, having this intellectual exercise, helps us consider how to make america better. if donald trump were to go away, that wouldn't solve all our problems. i think that trump is a product of this. it's become a cliche to say he is a symptom, but i think this is another example of how that is the case. even back in the good old days of mitt romney against barack obama, a lot of americans didn't trust each other, didn't want to be friends with each other. 2014, again, seems to be a high water mark of think pieces being written about it. i found a ton of pieces being

written. we have to ask ourselves why. part is simple political sort, the sorting process. republicans used to become democrats. there used to be conservative democrats who became republicans. i think some is technology, frankly. why is it that 2014 was a high water mark of people talking about this? i think social media has impacted this. we see the worst things. if you're a conservative, you see the worst things the progressives say. the same is true if you're a liberal, you're seeing the worst things that right-wingers are saying. you can't avoid it. you can't turn it off. it's at least hard to do it. but i honestly do also think that there is some sort of spiritual, cultural problem that has infected america, that is very deep seeded, that is at the root of this. how do we address that? how do you change people's hearts? that's above my pay grade.

>> and you get at this in the piece, but don't you think that donald trump is such a different animal from any other republican president, that if a few years ago you went to college and were a progressive and your roommate said, "i voted for john mccain, mitt romney, george h.w. bush, okay, we have different views of policies. now, do you support a muslim ban? are you okay with people who beat up cops at capitol on january 6th? the stakes, it seems to me, are so much different than they've been in the past. you can understand why someone may not want to share a room with somebody who shares those views. >> willie, i completely agree. i think i would understand. like, if this data all of a sudden emerged -- and, by the way, pew, there is some outliers that suggest this is a newer phenomenon. broadly, what has been observed and written by academic is that

this has been happening since about 1960. the trend maybe has gotten worse in recent years. i would totally understand if all of a sudden, in the trump era, you had people who didn't want to affiliate with each other. that would make perfect sense to me. the weird thing, though, again, is that i found so much of this being talked about and being espoused in 2012, 2010, 2014, leading up to donald trump. look, i don't want to cast blame on anybody other than donald trump and republicans for electing donald trump, but i do wonder. some of the story -- again, i don't want to play victim as a conservative -- but i think some of the story is that conservatives and republicans felt like they were under attack. they were unjustly under attack. when you look at people who were cutting off friends because they voted for mitt romney, i can

sympathize a little with a republican who felt like, hey, we're decent people. we nominated this boy scout, and they're calling us, you know, evil, mean, racism, homophobes or whatever. again, i don't think that's the dominant theme of this story, but i think it may be part of the story. >> just to summarize, the poll number matt is talking about, the nbc poll showed 54% of americans definitely or probably would room with someone who supported the opposing candidate in the 2020 election. 47% said probably not or definitely not. still a majority would. let's keep hope alive, matt. read matt's new piece in "the daily beast." he is a senior columnist. thanks so much. polls have just opened in new york and florida on a key primary day. we have reporters staked out at voting locations across the country to hear what could be the deciding factors in some of the key races. we'll be right back. strugglingh inflation and congress and president biden just did something about it.

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live picture of joe scarborough's hometown, pensacola, florida. let's bring in some reporters for the races. we have shaquille brewster in kingston, new york. nbc news correspondent dasha burns. here in studio, senior national political reporter for nbc news, sahil kapur. let's begin in florida, where democrats are competing to take on incumbent republican governor ron desantis. one of the top contenders is charlie crist, the state's former republican governor what later became a democrat. his opponent is nikki fried. she's been out-spent on the airwaves, with crist saying he has what it takes to beat desantis. he points to his past as a republican and past election

losses. what are you looking at this morning, shaq? >> reporter: good morning, willie. polls opened in florida a couple minute ago. they'll be open until 7:00 p.m. this evening and before hitting election day, more than 2 million floridians already cast their ballot, either in-person or by mail, concluding what has been this contentious primary battle between, as you mentioned, charlie crist and nikki fried. this is one we've been watching closely because it is going to determine who is going to face ron desantis here in florida. what you have, and you set it up a little there, but on one side, charlie crist, a democratic representative here in florida, he's someone who was the former republican governor, someone who was leading in the polls early in the race, who locked in big endorsements in florida among elected democratic officials and union groups. he is facing a tougher-than-expected, if you talk to folks here in florida, battle with nikki fried, who called him out on his past record as a republican.

called him out on some of his judicial appointments as governor, especially considering the overturning of roe v. wade. nikki fried, the agricultural commissioner, her slogan is on the campaign bus, request it as something new. she represents something new. her pitch has been she'll be a bigger contrast to ron desantis because she is a woman and because she believes he can appeal to moderate suburban women here in this state of florida. that is a race that has gotten extremely contentious. we'll see. one thing you hear both candidates acknowledge is that the battle that they have ahead is going to be a big one. ron desantis, they know and see his approval rating, it is above 50%. they know his national profile as a potential 2024 presidential candidate. he's also someone who has $130 million in the bank, ready to spend against whoever comes out of this primary. it will be a big fight ahead.

one other point i'll make note of is we're also watching the battle to take on senator marco rubio. val demings, she seems well-positioned to win the democratic party nomination for that battle. look at polling. things appear close once we get to the general election. val demings, former police chief in orlando. that is a race that is not going to be close today based on what you hear from political observers, but it'll set up a real battle, expensive battle once we get to november. >> val demings was a police chief in orlando. it'll be a fascinating race against rubio if she advances today. shaq, thanks so much. new york's district pits two powerful democrats against each other. jerry nadler of the judicial committee and carolyn maloney of the oversight committee. the maps blended their districts, so the friends are facing off against each other.

there is also a 38-year-old lawyer, patel, running on the theme of generational change. also in new york state, a special election in hudson valley pits pat ryan against molinaro in a bellwether district. dasha, this is fascinating, particularly the one in the hudson valley. perhaps a snapshot of where the country is. >> reporter: if the you are looking for clues of what we might see come november, head up to the hudson valley. this district, new york's 19th, stretches from here up through albany. it is a bellwether district. it flipped from obama to trump and then to biden. this race may really answer this key question going into the midterms, which party has the edge? especially in terms of those issues that motivate voters to get out to the polls. you've got the first competitive congressional race since the supreme court overturned re versus wade.

what is going to motivate folks? is it going to be abortion, or is it going to be inflation? democrat pat ryan is really running on abortion access as a central issue for his campaign. he's telling voters to channel that frustration, that anger into action here, and come out and vote for him. his campaign signs say, "choice is on the ballot." he told us last night that choice absolutely has to be forefront and center in his campaign. meanwhile, his republican opponent is calling this election a referendum on joe biden and on the performance of democrats in washington. turnout is really going to be key. are republicans going to be propelled to come out because they're frustrated with washington, or are democrats going to be really energized, like what we've seen in kansas and other states since the fall of roe v. wade, to come out and vote based on this issue, willie. >> it is a small congressional election, but, you're right, it'll tell us a lot. dasha burns in kingston, new

york, thank you so much. great to see you. sahil, there's a lot to drink in. we can start with the maloney and nadler race. we were talking ahead of time, it started out as two old friends who have known each other a long time. in the initial debate, they were criticized for not laying a glove on each other. it's gotten a little more aggressive and uglier since then. >> it has. it is unusual the see competitive democratic house primaries in our neck of the woods in manhattan, but that's what this map has done. it's created clashes between democrats, many whom have served together and run in parallel districts. now, this upper east side and west side district has been melded into a single one. jerry nadler t chairman of the house judiciary committee, facing carolyn maloney of the oversight committee. only one can move on to the general election. they both served. they were elected in 1992. they both served for three decades. only one can advance. there's a wild card in this case. the 38-year-old attorney, patel,

who is running on generational change. he had a memorable line in a recent debate, saying it is time to turn the page on 1992. he seems to be also positioning himself for the future, if not -- if he doesn't win this time. in lower manhattan, not far from here, there is congressman jones running in a newly created district, trying to win a second term. he's in a crowded field of candidates. one is goldman, who received a backhanded endorsement from donald trump. support from donald trump is the kiss of death. goldman is trying to dismiss that as an attempt to -- by the former president to manipulate this election and keep goldman out of congress. goldman was an adviser to democrats during the first impeachment of trump. finally, a little bit up on the metro north, you have sean patrick maloney, chair of the democrats' congressional arm, fending off a progressive challenger who has the support of ocasio-cortez. biaggi tried to make that about

the way her opponent handled certain races. including one in michigan where they propped up a far right candidate that democrats think would be easier to defeat in a general election. >> he's defended that strategy as saying, well, if it works, the ends justify the reporting out of florida. what should the casual viewer of these races today be looking for down there? >> also new map in florida. polls are open today. there are fewer competitive contests, i would say, on the democratic side than there are here in new york, but there are a couple house races including a red district around orlando where a bunch of republicans are competing. a new bluish district where a bunch of progressives and democrats are competing. the marquee race is certainly on the governor side, which democrat is going to take on ron desantis. he has presidential ambitions. they want to try to bloody him up a bit politically, and of course, the new york special election is going to tell us so much about the national climate.

both parties are presenting themselves as the underdog for very different reasons. they all want that comeback narrative. they're worried about turnout for different reasons. republicans are worried this coincides with the democratic primary, and new york being a blue state, democrats turn out in big numbers. and its a perennial concern, when they hold power, especially because there are sections of their base who have a tendency to sleep through midterm elections. they can't afford that if they want to hold on to the house. >> sahil, thanks so much for being here, the senior national political reporter for nbc news. >> in our fourth hour, steve kornacki will be at the big board. >> up next, nbc's ali vitali out with a book today on why america hasn't put a woman in the white house yet. ali has some never before reported comments from hillary clinton and elizabeth warren about what it's like for a woman running for president. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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last night, i congratulated donald trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. i hope that he will be a successful president for all americans. this is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for. and i'm sorry that we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country. >> hillary clinton delivering a concession speech to a room full of shell-shocked supporters after the 2016 presidential election. joining us now, nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali. ali is out today with a new book titled "electable, why america hasn't put a woman in the white house yet." ali, congratulations on the book. there's so much good stuff

inside that we want to ask you about. just kind of like a big snapshot picture behind the book, which is that america, not unique in the world, but there's a lot -- there are many democracies across europe and across the world that have had women in power for many, many years. as heads of state. america just not one of them. >> we're lagging behind in that metric. so what i try to do in this book is take the 2020 democratic primary, which all of us lived through, which i got to report out here on this program, and on msnbc over the course of that entire primary. more women running then than ever before, and still, democrats nominated an older white man in joe biden to go up against donald trump. they did that because they used words like electable, but also the idea that he was safe or not risky, and the question that i posed, especially after senator elizabeth warren dropped out and i covered that race, was could we ever apply those words to a female candidate, and i think the answer at least in the short

term was no, in part because we had just never seen it done before. >> such a great subject. i think there's also something here about parliamentary systems versus presidential systems, how much money it takes and the way that perhaps in lots of those democracies that have had women, they have risen up through the party. some of the stories in the book are great, and kirsten gillibrand, senator gillibrand, saying to you think she thinks in retrospect, no woman could have won in the 2020 election. unpack a little bit what she said to you and why. >> yeah, a striking comment from one of the four senators who ran in 2020. i got to do interviews with almost all of them, with the exception of vice president kamala harris, who chose not to speak with me for this book, despite the fact she has been elevated further than any woman has been in our system of government. but i was struck by the fact that senator gillibrand said to me she thought in this cycle, they needed to nominate someone like joe biden because of the way he was considered safer than

the other candidates. and in gillibrand's words, she said to be a woman in this presidential system still is new and still carries some risk in the minds of voters. and certainly as you and i were out there on the campaign trail covering 2020, riskiness was the thing that voters wanted to avoid at all cost, but it really manifested in this idea when i would talk to voters and the were polled that bore this out in the campaign, the idea if voters could wave a magic wand, they would have chosen someone like senator elizabeth war nl, but when they put it in more of a horse race context, they went with someone like joe biden. in one specific poll done in the 2020 campaign, voters were asked what could the magic wand candidate, in this case, elizabeth warren, change to be more electable, and they said gender. that kind of tells the whole story there. >> you spoke to elizabeth warren about that experience. tell us what she said and whether she felt she could have overcome what was presumably a

sort of a hidden barrier that nobody really wanted to talk about at the time, at least not that explicitly. >> right, but this still came up despite the fact none of these candidates wanted to explicitly talk about the role gender was playing, it was still something that was being brought up in real time. whether it was talking about gender and electability on the debate stage in iowa in 2020 between bernie sanders and elizabeth warren, whether it was amy klobuchar and pete buttigieg talking about whether a woman with buttigieg's experience would have been taken as seriously. klobuchar said she didn't think so. there were multiple moments where gender manifested very overtly in front of the entire field, but what was striking is these women were having to talk about it in real time, trying to force something framed as a negative in most cases and trying to parlay it in the minds of voters as saying we can win and we can be electable, if only you will vote for us. i think what was striking in my

conversations with senator warren, both for the book and on the campaign trail, she was candid about the role gender played, but at the end of the day, what was stunning to me, in the final interview for the book, at the end of the day, she thought it was her that couldn't get it over the finish line, not her policies but her as the candidate. >> you mentioned the debate moment between bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. hillary clinton was watching that closely. you talked to secretary clinton about that. she said i believed warren because i know bernie sanders and i know the things he says about women and to women. she said she wished warren had pushed back against bernie in front of everybody on the stage. striking comments from hillary clinton there. >> absolutely, and i was thankful for her candor in talking to me for this book because she is someone who wasn't just watching with the perspective of being the woman to rise for the first time to the top of a major party ticket to get that nomination in 2016. she was watching as someone who was also having conversations

with many of these women in real time. one of the things she remembers from the long breadth of the primary is in talking to especially the senators running for president in 2020, the idea that all of them had run in tough races before. they had all been elected to the senate, no easy feat, but once they entered the presidential arena, the way that gender was manifesting, the way misogyny was manifesting, was different. and that moment on the debate stage in january in iowa was one that all of us in the pres corps found remarkable because it was really saying the quiet part out loud. the thing organizers had been hearing at the door, trying to make the point voters needed to hear and answer to an electability question that couldn't be answered until voters went to the polls and voted for these women. the end of the chapter that

focused on that moment on the debate stage between bernie sanders and warren is warren being candid in a previously off the record and now reported for the first time in this book conversation she had with those of us on the campaign plane saying voters tell me, everyone says i would vote for you if you had a panis. this is something the women candidates were thinking about in real time, often they were talking about it, but it was always in the back of their minds, and certainly something voters were thinking about too. >> ali, how do we get past this? if women have not been elected president because women previously have not been elected president and are seen as unsafe, how do we ever break that barrier and get past it? >> i'm so glad you asked that question because the only way i would have written that book if i thought the yet at the end of the subtitle was something that could bear out, and i think in every conversation i had with democrats and republicans, former candidates and operatives, all of them believe we are going to get there, and i think part of it, and the hope for me in writing this book, is

that once you are primed to the way that bias and stereotypes can manifest in these narratives that often hurt female candidates, it levels the playing field a little bit. look, i'm on the show a lot. i'm a reporter first. i think all of these candidates should be scrutinized, asked tough questions. they're sometimes open to criticism. i'm not saying you cannot do that for female candidates. what i am saying is it's an inbalanced systems with inequities that often tilt against women candidates, and that's the point of the book, look at 2020, something we all experienced, but put a gender lens over it and show the moments we all lived through and reported on in real time in that new light, because gender is one of those intangible things and i think for that reason, because we can't quantify it, sometimes in the political analysis, it gets lost or it's cast aside as not important, but i think the way senator warren framed it at the end of her bid was the jumping off point for me, which

is if you say that gender and misogyny existed in a race, people might say whiner, but at the same time, millions of women will say what planet are you living on where you think this is not a factor, and clearly what i try to lay out is that's not just a feeling. it's a fact backed up with studies and interviews with people at the very center of this. >> the book is excellent, full of deep new reporting. it's called "electable, why america hasn't put a woman in the white house yet." a must-read from our friend and colleague ali vitali. thank yous so much. congratulations. >> we're going to take a quick break. stay with us because we have big overnight developments. "new york times" reporting on the investigation into classified documents seized from mar-a-lago. we'll tell you about the paper's new reporting on the alarming number of documents found so far up in the hundreds, what triggered the unprecedented search of the former president's home, and the reporting that donald trump personally handled some of the documents that ultimately were returned to the

government. "morning joe" is coming right back. shingles. some describe it as an intense burning sensation or an unbearable itch. this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks. it could make your workday feel impossible. the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you. if you're 50 years or older, ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles.

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we've got some new reporting on what sparked the fbi search for classified documents at mar-a-lago two weeks ago. sources telling "the new york times" the government has recovered more than 300 documents marked as classified from donald trump so far. the first batch returned in january, included more than 150 classified documents, but there were more. according to the times, quote, the number ignited intense concern at the justice department and helped to trigger the criminal investigation that led fbi agents to swoop into mar-a-lago this month, seeking to recover more. a number of people briefed on the matter telling the times the former president personally went

through 15 boxes before handing them over in january. the paper reports, quote, the highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the justice department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation. the government retrieved a second set of documents from the former president's aides in june, followed by a third set seized in that fbi search two weeks ago. according to the times, the large number of documents and the amount of time they remained at mar-a-lago while being sought by the justice department, quote, suggested to officials the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling them, not fully forthcoming with investigators or both. sources telling the times, investigators still are seeking more surveillance footage from mar-a-lago, a sign that officials still are looking into how the classified material was handled while improperly stored at the former president's estate. according to the times, the fbi declined to comment.

president trump's spokesman did not immediately respond. joining us now, nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian, and former u.s. attorney and former senior fbi official, chuck rosenberg. good morning to you both. ken, i'll start with you. nbc news is working to confirm all this, a blockbuster story dropped by "the new york times." the top line, the 300 documents, 300 taken by donald trump, according to the times reporting out of the justice department, is a pretty staggering number when you consider all the excuses that donald trump has made that he slipped some things into his briefcase or they were planted by the fbi. no, it turns out, boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes in the basement at mar-a-lago. >> yeah, it's remarkable, willie. also fascinating to me is the fact that donald trump's lawyers yesterday in their lawsuit challenging the warrant and asking for a special master to go through the documents, essentially acknowledged the timeline that led up to the

search, things they didn't have to admit, for example, that the justice department served a grand jury subpoena on them back in may. and then also subpoenaed the surveillance tape from mar-a-lago. that had been reported elsewhere, but now the trump side has confirmed it. it sort of paints this picture of why they took this dramatic step of trying to obtain and obtaining this search warrant, which is they asked nicely for the documents and subpoenaed the documents and they weren't satisfied. the trump lawyer also confirms that jay bratt, the senior justice department attorney in charge of counterintelligence went to mar-a-lago with three fbi counterintelligence agents and met personally with donald trump, asked to see the storage room, according to the trump side, bratt went to the storage room, accompanied by secret service agents at mar-a-lago, and later asked trump to put a better lock on the storage room, so clearly, a lot of concern about what was happening with those documents. you know, you have to believe there were certain things that

were omitted from this account by the trump lawyers about exactly what the justice department was saying, but it really paints this extraordinary picture of all these efforts by the u.s. government to try to get these classified documents back, which were unsuccessful, which then led up to this dramatic search, which is now being criticized by donald trump and his republican allies as overreach, but they tried to do a lot of stuff before they ended up getting the search warrant and swooping in with two dozen fbi agents. >> that's the thing, chuck. this is just a matter of routine for most outgoing presidential administrations. you hand over your documents to the national archives. national archives as we have seen, tried and tried to get them the right way, the conventional way, and ultimately did not. they said two former white house officials according to the times told donald trump you have to give this stuff up to the national archives. he responded by saying no, they're mine. they of course are not. they belong to the united states government. what do you make of the new

reporting and the lengths to which donald trump and members of his staff went to retain these documents in a basement in mar-a-lago? >> that's right. if you're acting in good faith, if you accidentally took stuff home, right, you would expect that it wouldn't come back in three batches and perhaps more. if you made a mistake, and someone told you you had classified information in the basement of your house, you would go right down there, maybe with somebody to help you, and you would diligently go through everything. so why does some stuff come back in january, some more stuff comes back in june, and it still takes an fbi search warrant to get the rest of it, or at least watt we think is the rest of it. there's a couple factors here. if you're thinking about it as a federal prosecutor. how much stuff did he have? how long did he have it? why did he have it? when someone told him that he had it, what steps did he take to return it? they don't seem to be all that diligent in that part of it. and then what was the classification level, willie?

there's different levels of information, from confidential to secret to top secret to top secret compartmented information. so in addition to knowing now that they returned about 300 documents, what was the classification levels of it? but the thing that continues to concern me, if you're acting in good faith, is what took so long and why is it coming back in batches? so i don't blame the fbi or the department of justice one bit for trying to get this stuff back. it's a problem to have it in your basement. >> yeah, to say the least. mike barnicle, as the times report points out and really gets at, this was a long process. this was not an overnight move, as donald trump and others have claimed, that fbi agents showed up at mar-a-lago and kicked down the door and started rummaging through his stuff. no, these were long-standing requests. the conventional way, the routine way to get some of these documents back, and as they trickled in, beginning in january of last year, it was taking too long. and they had to go in, and with

a legal search warrant, and get the rest of them. >> willie, as has been reported and as you just mentioned, one of the keys to this is the mind frame of the potential defendant here, donald j. trump, when he said the documents are mine, they belong to me. and chuck, in terms of legal jeopardy, what are the pivot points here? what potentially could a former president be charged with, given what he's done? >> well, great question, mike. so of course, it would be extraordinary to charge a former president, just as it was extraordinary to execute a search warrant on the home of a former president, but the pivot point really for all of these statutes, all of these criminal laws is intent. so not to be too cliche, but what did the president know and when did he know it? did he understand he had classified information in the basement? did he understand that he had to turn it over? nevertheless, did he retain it willfully or intentionally? despite the requirements of the law. so for all of these cases, mike,

not to sound overly legalistic, it turns on intent. what was in the president's mind, what did he understand, and why did he act the way he acted? that's always a hard thing to prove. it might be easy to prove that he had classified information in his house. that's easy. right? the agents went in there and saw it, they took it, they got t they brought it back. that's easy. but the why. why did he act the way he did, what was his intent? those will always be the pivot points in a criminal case, and it's always the hardest thing to prove. >> and these are not just these documents, the love letters that donald trump so cherishes from kim jong-un. we're talking about classified documents rathering national security. we don't specifically what they are, but we know the sources of them, which are intelligence agencies in the national security apparatus, so fair to say there's some sensitive material in those boxes. >> yeah, that is fair to say, willie. i was just wondering as i read the story last night, what would

happen to me or to you if we were found to have, you know, 300 classified documents, some in my basement, some in my bedroom closet, and the fbi found out about it. i think either you or i would be under the jail at this point. we would certainly be charged. i think there's been extraordinary patience on the part of the government, of the fbi and the justice department, and the archives in seeking very nicely to get these documents back. my question for ken is about this, i guess it's a lawsuit that the trump side filed. what is the point of this? is this just more delay? it doesn't -- i don't understand what they think the difference between a special master looking at the documents and a sort of

scrubbing team from the justice department looking at the documents would actually be. are they just playing for time? >> well, one thing they're doing is issuing sort of a public press release through a legal document denouncing the search and calling it an overreach and saying it violated donald trump's fourth amendment rights, which most experts look at that and say that's not the case. this is a lawfully approved search warrant by a magistrate judge who reaffirmed he thought there was ample probable cause to justify the search. he said there was evidence of multiple crimes at mar-a-lago. on the special master thing, that's actual not an unreasonable ask. there was a special master in the michael cohen case when the federal government searched and seized some of his documents. it's really functionally the same thing. if you believe that the fbi filter team and doj filter teal right now that's going through the documents that's independent of the investigation is acting

in good faith and taking out attorney/client privilege documents, a special master would do essentially the same thing. i'm not sure what the justice department position is going to be on this, but i can't imagine it will give them great concern because this kind of thing happens all the time, and they showed by giving donald trump back his passports that they deemed were not relevant to the search that they're happy to do that. and i want to add one thing, guys, in terms of a lot of people might be looking at this and going, he was president. he had access to all the secrets, so what if he accidentally had some classified documents or even intentionally in his house? but we're talking about some documents marked tssci, sensitive compartmented information. i have been asking around just to reaffirm my understanding of how sensitive those documents are. those are documents, the reason they're compartmented is because they could betray and likely would betray the sources of information, either a human source or a technical source. they could literally -- the disclosure of those could get

people killed. so we're talking about the most sensitive documents and at least one set of documents there that the government has, and any time there's any kind of spill or disclosure in the real world of those kinds of documents, it's a massive firestorm. the federal government swoops in and does everything they can to secure this stuff. you can only look at them in special facilities, even within the capitol or other kinds of buildings, you have to go to a special room to look at those documents. that's how sensitive some of those documents allegedly in trump's possession were. >> just sitting at a beach and tennis club with membership floating around. just to fill in the blanks, ken has been talking about the special master. so trump and his team filed a lawsuit to block the department of justice from, quote, further review of seized materials before that special master is appointed. special master is an outside official selected by a judge to carry out a judicial matter on the court's behalf. in the lawsuit filed in the southern district of florida, it requests a more detailed receipt

for the property seized from mar-a-lago, and that search on august 8th, and asks anything not within the scope of the search warrant be returned. so that's just what we're talking about when we say special master, katty. >> we already had those passports returned and this sounds as much as anything a bit like a stalling tactic. chuck, can i ask you a little bit more about this issue of intent, as you say, this is key here. a lot of trump supporters are saying this is a former president. he would like have these souvenirs so he kept the letter from kim jong-un at home. there's sympathy among his supporters about some of the material he was keeping. how would we know or how would the justice department go about trying to find out what donald trump intended to do with those documents? did he intend to use them for some kind of profit in any way for himself? particularly perhaps these ones that are ultra secret documents

where i imagine there would be an awful lot of concern. what's going to be the process there for finding out whether he intended to do something nefarious with them for his own benefit? because that would seem to be the key to whether this was really going to land him in legal jeopardy. >> that's a great question, katty. so you're talking about an aspect of the case that concerns us, those of us who worked in this classified environment the most. was there a transmission or an attempted transmission of these documents? in other words, if somebody, trump or anyone else, has classified information and wants to profit from it or simply wants to hand it over to a foreign power to the detriment of the united states, that's the most serious type of mishandling. it's really actually espionage. one way you prove that, of course, is by looking at the people around trump, and who he spoke to and what they understood and the conversations they had with the former president. if i wanted to know what you were thinking about a particular topic, i could ask you, but

maybe you couldn't tell me or maybe you wouldn't tell me the truth, so therefore i would have to talk to all the people that talk to you. right, if i can't get it directly from you for one reason or another, maybe you confided in someone else or maybe someone had an argument with you about how you were handling the classified information and was so disturbed by what they learned from you that they wanted to pass it to the fbi. one of the reasons these investigations take a long time is you have to talk to a whole bunch of people. you may not be able to talk to mr. trump directly or get anything useful from him, or get anything that's honest or candid from him, but you can talk to all the people around him, those who worked for him, those who worked at mar-a-lago, those who visited him. perhaps he showed the documents to other people. perhaps he told other people what he intend today do with the documents. none of this is a sure fire way to get to what he intended, but these are all proxies to get to what he intended, particularly if you don't have access to him and to his brain. >> and just an extraordinary image in "the new york times"

reports of donald trump in late 2021 personally going through the boxes deciding what to keep and what not to keep. chuck, ken, thank you both for walking us through this. >> coming up, who will face ron desantis in november? democrats will decide that today as florida voters head to the polls. we'll have the live report on a hard-fought race for governor straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪♪

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i know this from my time in working for devin nunes. i'm trying to bring people back to it because this is what the mar-a-lago raid was about. there's documents in there that need to be made public that were never released to the public when we were trying to do that. that exactly what president trump was doing when he was being a transparent president. >> that was former department of defense chief of staff, kash

patel, talking about the transparent president that donald trump was. patel speaking to news max yesterday with his take on the fbi search of mar-a-lago. claiming it took place because there were documents that needed to be made public. joining us now, columnist for "the washington post," david ignatius. we show that clip because you have a new piece up about kash patel and this role in all of this. let's take one step back and remind people who he is in the trump orbit. >> so, willie, i wrote in april of last year a piece for "the washington post" which i described kash patel, who began his recent career as a staffer for the head of the house intelligence committee, devin nunes, as being the zelling figure, if you remember the movie. in donald trump's campaign against the deep state, he keeps reappearing in different guises. so in 2017, he's the leading investigator for nunes, trying to show that the russia investigation is really a hoax.

by 2019, he's joined the white house staff working for trump as a counterterrorism adviser. in 2020, he is sent to the office of the director of national intelligence as his chief deputy and his really leading the effort to place trump rules for the intelligence agencies. he then is nominated in 2020 or pushed by trump to be deputy director of the fbi. william barr says in his recent memoir. over my dead body. that's how opposed he was to kash patel because he saw him as an instrument of trump in this war in which attorney general barr thought was misconceived against the so-called deep state. then there was an effort to appoint kash patel as deptry director of the cia in the end of 2020. he was initially proposed. gina haspel, then the cia director, went to the white house and was told the president intended to fire her deputy.

patel would come in instead. that stopped when haspel said i'll quit if you do that. then fascinatingly, patel has emerged in the last few months as a key point of contact for trump in dealing with this question of classified documents being kept at mar-a-lago. trump named him as one of the two representatives he wanted to have in dealing with the national archives in early summer, before the search warrant was executed. and going back to may, before we ever knew anything about subpoenas or search warrants at mar-a-lago, patel was publicly making the case that trump had essentially unilateral right to declassify materials as president and was continuing to argue that there were materials from the early days of the russia investigation that would show that the government, the fbi, was working with the media, with the hillary clinton campaign to manufacture an

investigation that's a long running that trump and his supporters have had that it was all a hoax. in each of these different instances, you find the same person, kash patel. he's a fascinating recurring figure and now one of the leading advocates in the argument that trump is making in his motion that his lawyers filed yesterday and generally that he is really the captain of this ship of classified material. >> david, i'm always interested in what people like kash patel do once they leave administrations and what's he been doing since he left the white house, and is he caught up now in the legal investigation into all of those boxes? is he somebody that the doj is wanting to question? >> i can't speak, katty, to who the doj is going after. those are precisely the issues they're working very hard to keep the public from knowing, but i have no evidence that he is. what kash patel has been doing

since he left the government has really been working with donald trump. he's a director of the company that owns truth social, which is trump's effort to replace twitter as a conservative social media platform. he has become increasingly a spokesman and defender of trump's prerogatives, as a former president and dealing with classified material. and he continues to make the basic arguments republicans have been making since 2017, that the russia investigation was ginned up by democrats. you can hear him on conservative talk radio, on fox news, making those arguments almost every week. >> and kash patel, the argument goes, is that donald trump on his way out of office, just declassified everything so that the people, the american people, could have access to it. he's making the transparency argument. david's piece is at washingtonpost.com. there's news out of ukraine, russian authorities are blaming ukraine now for the car bombing over the weekend that killed the daughter of a russian ultra

nationalist, an ally of vladimir putin. in a statement yesterday, the russian federal security service said the attack on darya dugina, quote, was prepared and committed by the ukrainian intelligence agencies. russian officials allege the attack was carried out by a ukrainian woman, their story goes, traveling with her young daughter, who then fled into neighboring estonia. kyiv denies any involvement in the killing. meanwhile, her father, alexander dugin, is calling for revenge. in a statement posted yesterday, dugin wrote, quote, our hearts yearn for more than just revenge or retribution. that would be too small. not according to russia style. we only need our victory. my daughter laid her maiden life on victory's alter, so win, please, he wrote. this as new u.s. intelligence reveals russia is planning new strikes on ukrainian infrastructure and government facilities soon. so david, obviously, russia has earned no trust and deserves no trust when it says this is ukraine's doing, the death of

this young woman. what are you hearing about what they may be using it for, though, in terms of a justification for further and escalated attacks? >> so, willie, i think that's essentially what's going on here, is this attack, whoever did it, and we just for the moment, we have russian allegation, ukrainian denial. we don't know the facts. but the attack is being used as a pretex for what will be further escalation. this war is getting nastier and tighter. bombs are going off in areas the russians thought were safe. the ukrainians are learning to use long range precisely targeted weapons to go after russian command and control. the number of russian officers, including generals, who have been killed in recent weeks, i'm told by my sources at the pentagon, is extraordinary. so we're in a new phase of this campaign, where russia is feeling much more of the target, it's furious about it. there's enormous pressure on

putin to strike back harder. the ukrainians meanwhile are pushing, pushing against the crimea, an area they had basically left untouched. they're doing everything they can to make their southern coast the new battle space in this war. they would like to free their key coastal city of odesa from russian threats. but i think in the days and weeks ahead, we're going to see this terrible war, which has already led to so many deaths, go into a new even more dangerous and deadly period. >> mike, the 31st anniversary of ukraine's independence from the soviet union is tomorrow. and there's some concerns that vladimir putin may have that date circled on the calendar as a moment to escalate russian attacks inside ukraine. >> you know, willie, as we approach the advent of fall and soon to be winter, and as david pointed out, this increasingly widening war and ukraine's

increasingly more sophisticated weaponry and the use of weaponry, my question to you, david, is down the short road within a month or so, the target clearly has been odesa, will be odesa, but at what point do the russians, do you think, decide, well, winter is coming. we can jack up europe with increased energy prices. but we have to go for odesa now. we have to get odesa before winter sets in. >> so, mike, i think both sides have been thinking they needed to make progress before the winter freeze, if you will. the russians would like to consolidate the areas that they have advanced on. they had very slow progress really since they went back on the offensive after their disastrous campaign to take kyiv. similarly, the ukrainians have felt that in august and september, they needed to show progress to their own people and to their allies in europe, in

being able to push russians back, so it's a different kind of war. the ukrainians' success has been in part that they were on the defensive. now they're on the offensive. they need new weapons and we have been sending them new and different weapons. special gear to clear mine fields that have been laid by the russians in areas they control, new anti-attack weapons designed for close-up use in battle as an army pushes the other army back. so we're going to see not trench warfare, but war of movement as the ukrainians try to move the russians back before winter to show, as i said, show their own population and the world, we can do this. we can actually win this war. we will have a period where the leverage on both sides will be economic. it will be a cold winter for europe, a cold winter in russia as well because of all the

cutbacks in supplies for the russians. and then we'll come back in the spring. i think the big question is whether the ukrainians will begin to have u.s. weapons. they are already said to be training with the u.s. ground attack planes. will their old migs, the old russian era weapons, the soviet era weapons that they still have been using, will those begin to be replaced with nato weapons from the u.s. and other countries? that would make a different war next year, even more ferocious than the one we have seen. >> that's certainly the plan with the billions of dollars of american weapons streaming into the country and into europe. david ignasher, thank you so much. we'll read your piece at the washingtonpost.com. >> coming up, steve kornacki is live at the big board, sizing up today's primary battles including a race in new york city that pits two democrats against each other. steve joins our discussion next on "morning joe."

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large out-of-state corporations have set their sights on california. they've written prop 27, to allow online sports betting. they tell us it will fund programs for the homeless. but read prop 27's fine print. 90% of profits go to out-of-state corporations, leaving almost nothing for the homeless. no real jobs are created here. but the promise between our state and our sovereign tribes would be broken forever. these out-of-state corporations don't care about california. but we do. stand with us. man 1: have you noticed the world is on fire? record heat waves? does that worry you? well, it should. because this climate thing is your problem. man 2: 40 years ago, when our own scientists at big oil predicted that burning fossil fuels could lead to catastrophic effects, we spent billions to sweep it under the rug. man 3: so we're going to be fine. but you might want to start a compost pile, turn down the ac. you got a lot of work to do because your kids are going to need it.

are they going to have a strike force that goes in with ak-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small business person in iowa? >> is the irs gearing up for war in our country? is nancy pelosi trying to start a nuclear war in asia? is there an effort by the national security state to stoke violence and 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 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 on basically parts of the country that don't support what the regime is trying to do. >> those aren't just some nutty

podcast hosts. those are top prominent republicans and donald trump allies spreading lies and conspiracy theories about the new irs funding in the recently passed inflation reduction act. there will be no armed tax agents coming after everyday americans. most of the $80 billion in funding will go to hire desk workers to enforce existingarne. let's bring in steve rattner with his charts. the irs long has been a target and it's had an impact. >> yeah, that's right, willie. the republicans in particular have been going after the irs for quite a while over a couple reasons. one is they just don't want to pay taxes so the less of the irs there is, the fewer taxes perhaps. and the other, of course, was that whole brouhaha during the obama administration about whether the irs was targeting right-wing organizations. but let's take a look at the consequences here on this chart. as you can see, since 2010,

there's been a sharp increase in overall government spending. that's the turquoise line. this is all inflation adjusted so it was basically keeping track with inflation. then of course, the huge covid upsurge. even without that, the government as a whole was spending along at or above inflation. the darker line is the irs, and you can see that they have been squeezing the irs' bungt for well more than a decade, adjusted for inflation, it's now down 25%. when you look at the chart on the right, the actual irs workforce, you can see the consequence of that. it has gone down on a per capita basis relative to the size of the population of america, it's gone down 45%. in other words, there are 45% fewer irs agents for every american than there was a bit more than a decade ago. they're trying to starve the beast in a nutshell. >> it's particularly now after the pandemic, people leaving government jobs, if you filed for a tax return a couple months

ago, you may not see it until the end of this year. they're understaffed and that's part of what the hiring is about. your next chart stocks about audits for the wealthy, which is one of the goals most people agree is probably a good idea for the government to check up on the wealthiest americans. but those rates have plummeted as well. >> yep, so as you made the point, processing paperwork has been slowing down, and this money will speed that up. but perhaps equally as importantly, as you also just said, because of the shortfall of funding, there's been an enormous drop in the number of audits, particularly of wealthy people. and so this chart shows you four different income groups and what's happened to them, if you look at the turquoise group at the top, people who made over $10 million a year, they had a 22%, almost a 1 in 4 chance of being audited back in 2010. today, they have less than a 4% chance of being audited today.

give you another example from the third line down, which is people who make over a million dollars. back in 2010, there were 41,000 audits of them. today, there's 14,000 audits of them. and part of the problem for the irs has been these audits are very complicated, complicated n surprisingly and they simply have not had the personnel to do them. and so you've had this drop in the rate of someone with a lot of money getting audited. >> last chart, steve, is about misreporting. what are we talking about here and the fact that it rises with the income level? >> well, first of all, if you think you only have a 4% chance of getting audited, you presumably are likely to take more chances in terms of the types of deductions you claim and how you report your taxes. you could call some of this misreporting or call it tax avoidance or tax evasion, but it also goes up dramatically with

income. so you could see on the right, someone who made $10 million on more on average, using irs data that larry somers and a colleague collected and turned into a very effective study, but irs data shows it you made over $10 million a year, you on average misreported, unquote, $1.4 million of your income. if you drop all of the way down to the left and you take someone who made $200,000 to $500,000 a year, they misquoted like 7.5% of the year. so $9,000 for the person at the bottom. $1.4 million for the person on the top and that is because more sophisticated people have more ways, frankly, to misreport, to misreport income. it is estimated that the new $80 billion that you referenced will produce $200 billion of tax collections that the irs would not other wise have gotten. larry somers and others believe

that the actual number is considerably more. so really it will help the federal budget deficit. but more importantly we need to restore a sense of fairness on the part of americans as to who is paying taxes and who isn't. and this kind of forcement hopefully will help americans understand that everybody is going to pay their fair share. >> steve, the point of this new money is really to go after the wealthy taxpayers who are avoiding paying taxes, those millionaires we talked about. but is there an income cut off essentially that we're looking at. are they really going to focus on income earners above a certain number. and not so much below a certain number and if so what is that number? >> no, they haven't done that, gene, to the best of my knowledge anyway. when you get down to the lower incomes, a lot of the processing

of returns is done automatically. and so there isn't -- and so they don't need quite as much help to deal with their issues. it will be processed automatically and you get a computer generated letter and if you owe some taxes you pay them. and if you get into the upper incomes, and these returns could go to hundreds of pages. it takes an enormous amount of manual labor to go through them one by one and negotiate with sophisticated taxpayers. so it used a variety of things in the computer system where things have not been done shall we say on the up and up and it will target those. it is a little bit like the old sully joke. why do you rob banks. because that is where the money is. >> steve rattner bringing us the charts on the irs this morning. steve, thank you so much. coming up, beto o'rourke is standing by. the former congress is running

for governor of texas and he's making gun reform a key component of his campaign. he joins us live when "morning joe" comes right back.

welcome back to "morning joe." sun just coming up in los angeles. as we near the top of our fourth hour, almost 9:00 here in the east. nearly 6:00 a.m. out west. the bbc katty kay is still with us for the hour. and it is a busy one. we have report setting rain in texas that has turned deadly. the storm pounding that state with three inches rain in just an hour.

and that has now headed east. we'll have the latest. also this hour, with back to school season in full swing, districts across the country facing major teachers shortages. now in ohio, teachers in the largest district are going on strike for the first time in 50 years. plus today is primary day across the country. democrats in new york trying to decide which long time member of congress will return to d.c. and which will be sent home. while in florida, the big question is who will take on ron desantis. steve kornacki will join us at the big board. plus beto o'rourke will be our guest. as that state prepares to implement one of the nation's toughest abortion restrictions. but we want to begin this hour with former president trump's new report that he held on to more than 300 classified documents after leaving the white house. citing sources briefed on the matter, "the new york times" is reporting this morning half of those documents were recovered

in january by the national archives which alerted the justice department. eventually leading to the fbi search of mar-a-lago two weeks ago. according to the "times," another set of documents at mar-a-lago was given to the justice department in june and additional documents then were recovered in the fbi search. all told, 300 classified documents recovered. nbc news has reached out to the doj, the fbi and the white house and president trump's spokesperson for comment. but did not immediately receive responses. joining us now, national security analyst for nbc news and msnbc clint watts. it is good to have you with us this morning. this is a story we've been talking about for two weeks. people suspected there were many classified documents based on what we heard from the initial warrant. but no one knew there were 300 classified documents as the "new york times" reports this morning. >> that is right, willie.

i think each day we