hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. as the world descends on new york city this week for the united nations general assembly gathering, they might not recognize what we here have become. the gop's post-january 6th denialism and its quiet quitting of democratic norms has actually recently descended into something even darker. the de facto leader of one of america's two major political parties has fully embraced a movement driven by a dangerous conspiracy theory. of course we're talking about donald trump and what happened this weekend during his rally in

support of ohio republican senate candidate one j.d. vance. at one point, trump spoke over a song that was all but identical to an anthem of the qanon movement. attendees responded, this is real, guys, that picture's real. they responded with that one finger salute you see on your screen. "new york times" reports this, quote, it was the first time in the memory of some trump aides that such a display had occurred at one of his rallies. the song played at the rally was a song called "mirrors" and it was selected for use at a video trump paid at the cpac meeting and posted on his social media site truth social. but it also sounded striingly like the qanon theme song. regardless of what song was played, adherence of the qanon conspiracy understood what was happening and loud and clear. for those looped into qanon, the odds of missing trump's apparent outreach are about nil, particularly given that its aims

and trump's are in sync, returning him to power. a year's long flirtation with a movement that holds as one of its central tenants the belief that donald trump is at war with a child trafficking cabal. here is what trump said about qanon before the 2020 election. >> well, i don't know much about movement other than i understand they like me very much, which i appreciate, but i don't know much about the movement. >> the crux of the theory is this belief that you are secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals. does that sound like something you are behind or -- >> well, i haven't heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing? i don't know. if i can help save the world from problems, i'm willing to do

it. i'm willing to put myself out there. i know nothing about qanon. >> i just told you -- >> i know very little. >> you told me but what you tell me doesn't necessarily make it fact. i hate to say that. i know nothing about it. i do know they are very much against pedophilia. they fight it very hard. >> no, they don't. so from playing footsie with conspiracy theorists, flash forward to today and this display again at trump's rally. it comes after weeks of trump promoting qanon content on his social media site. truth social. in the walk of the fbi search of his private club and residence, "new york times" is reporting there, last week for example trump posted an image of himself on truth associate wearing a q pin on his lapel and under a slogan reading, quote, the storm is coming. adherents to qanon believe that the quote storm is the moment when trump takes over, again,

regains power of the country. after vanquishing his enemies, having them arrested and potentially executed on live tv. donald trump and the qanon conspiracy theory and it's where we begin today. former senator and msnbc political analyst claire mccaskill is here, and frank figliuzzi, an msnbc national security analyst, and the former republican congressman david jolly joins us. he's also an msnbc political analyst. frank, here we go. so i saw the pictures and was horrified but not shocked. this is where we've been heading. you don't start with footsie and end up anywhere other than tangled up in the sheets together in bed, and that's where donald trump is right now with qa non. what does that mean for the qanon adherents in america? >> yeah, i saw it as well, and i was astonished by the messaging there. it's actually quite strategic

and certainly nothing spontaneous or accidental about it. look, when you combine the characteristics of a cult with all the trappings of a religion, you've got a very volatile, dangerous scenario on your hands. i frequently refer to the maga movement as a form of cult, but clearly if you watch this a youngstown, ohio, rally and if you were to take trump out of the video. listen to at audio in the last moments of the rally and watch the crowd, that kind of one word, that one finger gesture hands raised to the heaven, you would think you're in the final moments of an evangelical worship service in some mega church that's gone mad. all that it was missing was the altar call at the end. there is a religiosity about this that's extremely disturbing. there's a book out right now that essentially twists

christian theology into asserting that trump is the son of man referred to in the bible when it's intended to refer to christ, this author seems to imply that, no, actually, there's a son of god who's christ, and then there's a son of man, and that's trump. that's where we are today, nicolle, and when you do that, you get people who are absolutely willing to sacrifice their souls and their lives because it's no longer about politics anymore. it's about where they're going to spend eternity, and if you've convinced people that this is the man, this is the man you've got to adore and worship because it's your very soul at stake and the soul of the nation, then you're in a very dangerous situation if power is taken from him, whether it's through an indictment or another lost election. it becomes extremely dangerous. >> frank, i really wish this wasn't the news, but this is the news and so i'm going to keep going with the fbi's latest reporting that we have on how the fbi views qanon. this is from a june 4th, 2021,

fbi threat assessment on qanon specifically. adherents to q qanon will likely be affected by factors such as the severity of the covid-19 pandemic, the level of societal polarization in the united states, social media companies willingness to host qanon-related content on their sites and the frequency and content of pro-qanon statements by public individuals who feature prominently qanon narratives. we took all five of the boxes that the fbi warned us torques up the threat that qanon represents to america, and there's no reporting that suggests that any of the fbi threat assessments are among the documents that were at mar-a-lago, but clearly trump knows this, right? knows he's playing with fire. knows what the threat environment looks like in the united states of america? >> oh, not only do i think he

knows it, but i think that's what attracts him to this. it's like a moth to the flame, and the thing is, he knows that he's increasingly cornered. he's in trouble on so many legal fronts, even criminal fronts now, that this is kind of the almost last act of a desperate man. and you can look at this and go, you know, frank, be careful because that youngstown, ohio, rally was actually sparsely attended. the camera shots look great, people are stacked up behind him and right in front of him, but largely there was nobody in that arena. you can see this isn't that big of a threat. i say, yeah, i got you on the attendance issue, but what is extremely dangerous based on past histories of cults is that as they come near the end, as the leader is threatened, they get more and more dangerous and they do something cult experts call forcing the end. either the leader calls for the violence or the leaders taken out, the members take step up and force the ending whatever that could be. that's what concerns me.

we've learned from january 6th, it only takes a small number of people to do that. >> and frank, we know from donald trump's interview with hue hewitt last week, he's put law enforcement on alert. he's told them. my people are going to be mad, mad, mad, and to your point, frank, here's what an extremist expert said on cbs yesterday about, you know, to your point it didn't take a lot. it didn't take a lot of cult members when incited by donald trump and warned publicly on the hugh hewitt radio show to carry out the violence he's warned about. >> today there are 13 million individuals, the equivalent, you should say, of 13 million individuals who support the use of force to restore donald trump to the presidency. the problem that we face is that over and over in tweets by the former president, he is deliberately stoking not just

the fires of anger getting him political support but the fires that are leading to that violent 13 -- the equivalent of 13 million and that is really the heart of our problem that we face as a threat to democracy because if it's just a political threat, well, then we can have elections, but once it's not just denying an election but using violence as the response to an election denial, now we're in a new game. >> so it's all part of a plan charted out on paper by people who study the rise of violent domestic extremism in societies. it just hasn't happened here in a really long time, but the denial of the election result as a political maneuver comes first, and what it proceeds is violence. frank, how do we prepare for what comes next? >> so there's incremental steps that aren't even moving fast

enough. the electoral count legislation that's coming up in congress is somewhat helpful to clarify the role of the vice president and how we count the electoral college count, but look, there's a penetration strategy, infiltration of state, local, county election officials, even add now that to over 100 -- something like 119 people running for office throughout the country that are election deniers. get them in the house, the senate, get them in key positions in key swing states as election officials and now you've got a recipe where we may not even be automobile to seek a legitimately elected next president of the united states because that's the degree of infiltration that's gone on here. and that's a recipe for violence, even as early as the midterms that could happen. if i go back in my career to international terrorism, it's that combination of religion and cult status that gets people to

the point where they will martyr themselves. we do have a trump death count. i wrote a column on this for msnbc daily, where i start counting up the people who died from the guy who walked into fbi cincinnati field office to people killed at the capital on january 6th, and others who died because of their belief. that's more than a cult. there is this religious aspect that's extremely disturbing. >> claire, where is rob portman? this is the seat to replace rob portman in the united states senate. rob portman was in the bush white house during 9/11. he understands threats to the homeland as well as anyone you've probably worked with on that committee and in the u.s. senate. we looked, i didn't find any republican condemnation of the qanon song, a cult-like trance in which j.d. vance's supporters at the trump rally were positioned during that public

event and neither did i see anything over the weekend refuting the reporting "the washington post" that a lot of republicans including j.d. vance won't commit to accepting the results of the election. >> yeah, you ask what are the next steps. i think there will be three important steps that can save this country. the first would be republican leaders rejecting this kind of scary nonsense, and that would include rob portman. i'm disappointed and i think a lot of people are disappointed that when this happens in his state he does not stand up and say, wait a minute. and there's a lot of republicans that are leaders right now that could stand up and reject candidates that are running on a platform that says what voters decide doesn't matter. if we lose, we're not going to accept it. republican leaders can do something about that. the second thing that could happen is law enforcement leaders could stand up.

there was a lot of things that were scary about that rally. he delegitimized the rule of law and denigrated the fbi over and over again. i mean, just think about that, that that is now not even a headline in the story, that he is standing up there and denigrating the preeminent law enforcement agency in this nation. and then the third step would be people vote and reject this stuff. i think those are the three ways that we could save this thing. but i got to tell you the other thing that was remarkable about that rally, nicolle, i put myself in j.d. vance's place, and there was reporting that these candidates are really reluctant to have trump come into their state. a lot of the people that were at that rally aren't even from ohio. i read that one woman was there that had driven 12 hours from missouri to be there. it's like -- i don't want to put down the followers of the grateful dead, but it's a little bit like this.

people are traveling many states to go see this guy. it really is an entertainment venue and not a serious venue. but here's what's amazing. he stood at that podium when somebody is running for the united states senate and said the following, j.d. is really kissing my a-s-s. if you're the candidate, how do you take that? how insulting, that somebody that's been president stands in front of a bunch of your voters and basically says, you know, you're nothing. all you do is bow at my knee. i mean, just remarkable stuff. i have to believe that when he was saying that j.d. vance's stomach was in knots. >> well, i mean, j.d. vance's stomach, but i don't know that j.d. vance's candidacy is about much more than kissing trump's ass claire, isn't he reaping

what he sowed? >> well, absolutely. but the point is that for trump to say that kind of stuff out loud about somebody he's supposed to be helping, that doesn't make j.d. vance look strong want the bottom line is trump is willing to sacrifice anyone to promote himself. it doesn't matter if it's a candidate he's supporting or if it's his own family, he doesn't care, and that's what's so sad about all these people with this cultish devotion. they don't see. he didn't ask them to give money to j.d. vance, no, he wasn't trying to help him. he was there promoting himself. the only -- j.d. vance is just an instrument of him promoting himself. he doesn't care one whit. the only reason he wants j.d. vance to win is because he endorsed him, not because he cares. >> yeah, i mean, i guess for me, david jolly, the only part of the story that doesn't bother me. he doesn't give a hoot about j.d. vance.

j.d. vance is the candidate who mitch mcconnell said to prop up with emergency money, he's got a lot of funding from finance outside of ohio. he's got literally zero grass roots support. he's a new york guy who tweets, oh, is new york scary now? he's an absolute poser, a fraud who thinks women should stay in violent marriages and relationships because they're better for the kid, and trump's message, i don't have it written down, but i did read the reporting. trump's message is i don't like things either. he one time said bad things about me. you got to do what you got to do. i hope it's a colossal fail because the country is in danger with people like j.d. vance in the united states' senate. tim ryan is running a very good campaign. he's actually a much better match for ohio. but the what of it is almost the secondary piece that alarms me. it is the fact that this happens in america, in ohio, a state that matters, a state whose people deserve a lot more than a bloated cult leader coming in

and as claire says trashing a candidate he's supposed to support. it is evidence, it is sort of a big reveal of the rot and, frankly, the danger of the modern gop. >> yeah, nicolle, i commend you for your perfect assessment of j.d. vance, and i think you're right. the political story here goes beyond even one emasculated u.s. senate candidate on the stage in ohio the other night, and it goes to the rise of donald trump, but it shines a spotlight on how uniquely dangerous donald trump really is as a republican leader. that's not to say there are not other dangerous candidates emerging certainly if the secretary of state and some of the gubernatorial level candidates. donald trump is a uniquely dangerous leader of the party for his willingness to tap into the conspiracy and ultimately violent demographic that has emerged as now having equity within today's gop. and i think what is fascinating about this from a political lens

but also the security lens is do look at how small that crowd was. now, he was in ohio, there was an ohio state game, but listen that was a very small crowd, and then secondly, look at the current approval numbers of donald trump. they're at the lowest point in his career, somewhere in the low 30s. this is a former president who might run again who is now recognizing my support may be eroding past the point that i can regain it, and so what does he do? he goes where the customers are, which is the qanon theory or the qanon crowd. frank is exactly right. this was not a spontaneous moment. donald trump and the team knew the music they were playing, they knew the response they were eliciting, and the danger here is does donald trump truly believe that he needs to become a more high profile leader of the q movement going into what could be a political contest for the gop nomination in 2024. and at this point you would have to say, sure, probably so. because that's the audacity that

he leads with and it also suggests the wrestling match then between donald trump and ron desantis or mike pence or whomever else decides they would like to be president of the united states. that wrestling match could be a real one, and it could happen here in the next two months by election day of this year. >> david, let me just introduce one more thought i had. i actually believe that in 2016 if the republican party had to take on board qanon and look the other way and vote for trump anyway, they would have, and i say that because when he was grabbing women in the you know what, they didn't walk away. they didn't unendorse. they didn't demand that pence become the nominee. i think the story is what you just articulated, but it's also an emasculated republican party, a mitch mcconnell afraid of his own shadow and terrified to have to move offices if he's no longer the leader and kevin mccarthy who left his spine down in mar-a-lago three weeks after the january 6th attack. they are the reason this happens. mitch mcconnell could say i

don't want anyone that he campaigns for will not get a dime. they can make it stop today. they could make it stop today. and they choose to over and over and over again inject not just the sickness of a guy that will take the qanon customers but a guy that is knowingly stoking domestic violence. >> that's exactly right. the stain of donald trump and trumpism reaches to ken mccarthy, mitch mcconnell, lindsey graham, mike pence, everybody who looked the other way and enabled him. the stain of january 6th, the stain of two impeachments, the stain of an erosion of america's respect for the judiciary and the press. that is their legacy as much as it is donald trump. and so they let this moment happen. it is theirs as much as it is his, but donald trump's the one that's leaning into it, and that is a remarkably unique danger right now. >> let me just put this out there, if rob portman or mitch mcconnell want to call in, i'll be on for another hour and 40 minutes. if you want to condemn what you saw on tv, if you say that isn't who you are, my line is open.

when we come back, the danger qanon extremists pose to society, is not just something that could happen. a very real crime wave is happening. it exists today. how what trump says really does incite those who follow him. a reporter tracking that part of the story will join our conversation. plus, "new york times" with an important story on the threats to our democracy. chief among them republicans' refusal to accept defeat in our elections. the author of that extraordinary piece of reporting, david lion heart will be our guest on how the accurate parts of our democracy today are being exacerbated by republican candidates. while the justice department and the ex-president continue with a legal back and forth over those classified documents trump took to mar-a-lago, a look at how a pause in the investigation is putting u.s. national security interests at risk. all those stories and more after "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere.

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what i can tell you is that within -- within the domestic terrorism bucket category as a whole, racially motivated violent extremism is i think the biggest bucket within that larger group, and within the racially motivated violent extremist bucket, people ascribing to some kind of white supremacist type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that. i would also add to that that variably motivated violent extremists over recent years have been responsible for the

most lethal activity in the u.s. now this year the lethal attacks, domestic terrorism lethal attacks have i think all fit in the category of anti-government, anti-authority, which kors everything from anarchist violent extremists to militia types. >> fbi director christopher wray appointed by donald j. trump before congress in september of 2020, before the presidential election, pinpointing there in his testimony white supremacy as the single biggest threat within the domestic violent extremism bucket, which the fbi believes is the biggest overall threat, terror threat facing the united states homeland. joining our coverage on set, ben collins, nbc news senior political reporter. ben, last week, we pulled it up after the event of the weekend, a trump fan in a clown wig obsessed with the end times, have to explain end times to us,

threatened to kill all democrats in a dq, dairy queen? love my blizzards. another man riddled with q delusions in michigan shot up his family at home injuring his daughter and killing his wife and killing his dog. >> yeah. you know, people are wondering when it's going to happen, when the big next january 6th thing is going to happen, and we have this rolling wave of violence in this country by people who are obsessed with bringing back the previous time. you know, and that can mean whatever they want. it can mean the '90s. it can mean the '50s, something much further back than that. but they think they are losing control of the culture, of their own power in society, and donald trump is giving them a way to get it back. so is qanon by the way, but that guy who shot his family, you know, killed his dog, killed his wife, injured his daughter, went on to read it. she went into a thing called qanon casualties, it's where people go when their family members have been consumed by

qanon. not necessarily violent stuff yet, but they are worried about their family members, and she said qanon did this to my dad. qanon made him do this stuff. he was already a little -- he had a screw loose before hand, but this turned it into a full-on violent movement for him. and for donald trump to lean into this literally days after that, right, for donald trump to say, you know, push out a where we go one, we go all qanon pinned tweet or excuse me, truth, which is what he called it. >> he can't tweet. >> he can't tweet. you know, he knows what this is. this is a guy who's losing control of the idea that he can be democratically elected again, but he still has an army, and he's afraid of being indicted. so put two and two together here. >> and he's warned, he did tonight radio last week, he warned on the hew hewitt show of what the country would do.

tell me what happens in the qanon world after an ex-president does what he did on saturday, what happens? this sort of post-9/11 analysis was an analysis of chatter, but those were classified, you know, communications. i'm guessing in this domestic violent extremism universe that chris wray testified to, a lot of it is public facing in the social media forum. >> it's very public facing. they go to these communities that were banned from reddit, wind up on these spaces, so the donalds on there, there's a qanon forum. the qanon forum is dying. as the prophesy became more and more ridiculous, this guy's supposed to be in power. he's supposed to be locking everybody up. he's not even the president anymore, they were, you know, dipping away from this thing. they've been reignited entirely in the last few weeks because he is playing to them. now he's also playing all this music. it's this very religious experience at these spaces and they are playing into that too. these people are playing around with numerology, they're playing

around with the idea of the second coming. there are -- trust me, there are people who like donald trump for reasons that have nothing to do with this i'm sure, but the very extreme parts of this base are both more energized than ever, and less committed to voting than ever. what are they going to do with that energy? that's what we're about to find out, i think. >> frank, the picture gets more bleak when you start peeling back the layers. what is your sense from talking to your former colleagues at the fbi of how much of a handle they think they have on this in terms of all of the sort of rights and, you know, speech allows you to do a lot of this in full view, that's why it is public facing. with this intersectionality of domestic violent extremism threat, does the fbi feel like they can get their arms around this before something violent happens? >> the short one word answer is no.

the resources they've got on this already are stretched to the max. every single field office, all 56 field offices involved in a big way in countering the domestic terror threat. but as you referenced, nicolle, they don't have the same tools in the toolbox as you have with international terrorism. we still don't have a law that makes it illegal to commit something called domestic terrorism. we actually define it in our law, but we don't have a law against it. so you're forced to use other laws. that's great when the violence has occurred. in terms of preefrmgs, getting out in front of it proactively, very challenging to use the undercover technique, electronic surveillance and develop informants until someone in some chat room somewhere, maybe you've tripped over, maybe someone's pointed it to you, someone says, hey, they're talking about violence. that's a problem. it's the left of boom as terrorism agents will say. you've got to act left of boom before the bomb goes off, not

right of boom or you're simply cleaning up the wreckage, and that is the concern today, stretched to the max, lots of resources expended, but tools are not all there. >> david jolly, i don't expect anything of the republican party anymore, but this akak wee acquiescence feels like -- it's like russian roulette. it could hurt anybody. it could hurt anyone's family. why are they so impotent? >> i would suggest it's not impotence. it's not acquiescence, it's actually participation. and here's the very nuanced affiliation that mainstream republicans, quote, unquote mainstream republicans are making with donald trump and the conspiracy theorists and the alt-right and the white supremacy and that whole dark crowd, and it's this. the candidates today in today's

republican party are not presenting to the nation what they think the next marginal tax rate should be or how we pay for health care. they are embarking upon culture wars, and at the root of the culture war is this, your culture white america is being taken from you. your culture, christian america is being taken from you. from donald trump to the republicans, we are not going to let someone take your white christian culture from you. and, therefore, we are going to empower these culture war fights. these culture war fights in the hands of the proud boys actually leads to violence. where does it start? it starts with eight weeks before an election like we saw in 1820 and now in 2022, this notion that somehow immigration is the greatest problem we face, that brown people are coming across the border at us. they are participating in this narrative. they're not acquiescing to it. >> wow, ben collins, frank figliuzzi, david shelly, it's a terrifying way to start, but i'm really grateful to all of you

for having this conversation. you have shaken me to my core. thank you. claire sticks around after the break for us, this moment with donald trump and the rest of us put into really exquisite historical context. our next guest details two reasons why what we are living through right now represents the greatest threat to our country's governing ideals in decades. those two reasons and what we can do about it is our next story. don't go anywhere. i'd like to thank our sponsor liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. contestants ready? go! only pay for what you need. jingle: liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.

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so if you had the chance to read the physical paper of the sunday "new york times" this weekend, this is what you saw staring back at you. front page above the fold, this striking large headline, "democracy channelled, twin threats to governing ideals put america in uncharted territory." from that extoerd nar piece of reporting, the first threat is acute, the growing movement inside one of the country's two major parties, the republican party to refuse to accept defeat in an election. the second threat to democracy is chronic but also growing rkts, the power to set government policy is becoming increasingly disconnected from public opinion. joining us now the author of that new piece, "new york times" senior writer, david leonhardt. david, thank you so much for being here. i just confessed that the first time i picked up -- the story was online before my paper arrived and i went to read it, and i got depressed so i waited until my paper came in the morning and i read it in the paper.

it's really important, though. take me through these two serious blows to our democracy. >> yeah, it's very alarmingment i mean, i think of myself as an american optimist. i think the long-term history of the united states, mostly offer reasons for optimism, but this is really worrisome. so as you said, there are basically two threats. one is the immediate threat, and in the short-term, it's the much more worrisome one, which is the idea that large numbers of the republican party have signaled that they will not necessarily accept defeat in an election. and the reason this is worrisome is that it raises the possibility that in the future election, potentially as soon as the 2022 race or 2024 presidential race, republicans will try to overturn the result the same way donald trump tried and failed in 2020. this is just way outside of the norm of american politics in history. al gore lost a close disputed election to george bush, and he said, okay, it's time to move on. george bush is the president. richard nixon lost a close and

in some circles disputed election in 1960 to john f. kennedy. he said, okay, i lost. john f. kennedy is the president. we just didn't have until recently major figures or parties saying they would not accept defeat. the second problem is chronic, and in some ways it's built into the constitution, but for reasons we can get into if you want, it's become just much more problematic now. the democratic party has won seven of the last eight popular votes in the presidential election. that's an unprecedented streak. no other party has ever done that well. before this the best any party had done was six out of eight. the reagan republicans which won legitimate landslides, the fdr new deal democrats, thomas jefferson's democrat republicans. the abe lincoln republican party, when those parties won the popular vote, they got to govern, and for a set of reasons basically we now have this disconnect between the popular

vote and election outcomes in a way that we have never had before. in the past we had all kinds of restrictions on who could vote and who was a citizen. black americans were excluded. women were excluded, but among the people who could vote, popular sentiment tended to guide who won elections, and now we're seeing a disconnect. >> and it is so acute and i thought of the supreme court when i read that section. i don't want to skim over the first one, though, and then we'll come back to this, which is really structural in nature. you write that over the sweep of history, the american government has tended to become more democratic through women's suffrage, civil rights laws, the direct election of senators and more. the exceptions when black southerners lost rights has been rare. the current period is so striking partly because it is one of those exceptions. there's so much about what you pulled together that like your point about popular elections

hasn't happened before. tell me your degree of alarm as you sort of peel back the layers to this, you know, we say these things on cable tv. we're never positive they're true, but it feels like we are in uncharted territory. >> i think we are, and which isn't to say that things are worse than they've ever been. in many ways our democracy is much more inclusive than it was in the past. i mean, in the living memory of large numbers of americans, there were many parts of this country where black americans could not vote, right? in the living memory of our grandparents women could not vote. so i'm not saying that american democracy is worse than it's ever been. by some measures it's better than it's been for the vast majority of our history. i think this notion, though, that you have large portions of a party signaling that it might not be willing to accept defeat in an election, that is a fundamental tenet of democracy. i think a huge part of what will determine where this goes is one, what about the rest of the republican party. we're not talking about all

republicans, according to 538 calculations, something like 40% of republicans running for office this year are election deniers. that leaves 60 who are not, about 10% kind of play footsie with it. mitch mcconnell has been pretty strong on this. he said there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. the supreme court, whatever you want to say about its other decisions refused to get involved in the 2020 election. and so i think one -- the most important group is going to be these republicans who have not yet signed on to this radical movement to deny elections and what are they going to do. and i think liberals and democrats also have an important role to play here. it's important to remember that you can disagree on all kinds of issues and still accept democracy. being opposed to gun control is not anti-democratic. being opposed to abortion is not anti-democratic. being opposed to low tax rates for the rich, none of those views are anti-democratic. it's going to be important for democrats to figure out how do

we build a big enough tent to protect our democracy and have people in that tent with whom we disagree strongly on all kinds of high stakes issues but we all believe in democracy and we can live to fight another day in the political realm over those issues, but we have no hope if we lose this notion that we are in a democracy where the winner of an election, the rightful winner of an election gets to take power. >> you know, claire, to david's point, there are disagreements around the three issues he cited, but what republicans want is for them not to be decided in democratic ways. i mean, they have pushed through predicated on the big lie hundreds of laws to change access to the polls. and i want to read you something, claire. we did our first show on the danger to democracy on this program, on september 30th, 2020. do you remember this claire, i'll remind you.

trump had been asked by chris wallace the day before if he would accept the results of the election, and he said this, i'm urging my supporters to go to the polls and watch very carefully because that's what has to happen. i'm urging them to do it. i'm urging my people. i hope it's going to be a fair election. if it's a fair election, i'm 100% on board, but if i see tens of thousands being manipulated, i can't go along with that. headline was that he didn't commit to accepting the results of the election, one of what david reports out as one of the two big threats to our democracy. claire you said this, i believe in his heart he's a coward. this is not a man of great courage. i think he's a phony, i think he's looking for a fig leaf. i believe he thinks east going to lose and he doesn't want to confront that. he's going to be rejected by the american people. that has infected in david's numbers, he wrote down 40% of the republicans are election deniers, plus ten that are playing footsie with us, even my weak math skills gives us 50% of all republican candidates are in

that position that trump was in in september of 2020. how do we -- it's a nose dive for democracy. how do we get out of this? >> well, first, i have great respect for david and his work on this piece and i consumed it. then i went and threw up, and then i thought about it because it is so hard for me having been part of government for so long watching it go off the rails like this, and i got to say, he just said in the segment a minute ago, major figures in parties. and it really isn't major figures in parties. it's just one man. donald trump did this. he is solely and -- now, there are other republicans that are aiding and abetting him at this point and enabling him at this point and emulating him at this point, but make no mistake about it. this norm, you know, you cited, you know, richard nixon accepted it.

al gore accepted it, hillary clinton lost the popular vote, never said i didn't, you know, i was really elected. she didn't do that. i mean, no one had ever in america done what this man did. he is solely and completely responsible and i will not do both sides on this one. it's donald trump and just donald trump. >> david leonhardt, claire mccaskill. to be continued. thank you both for spending some time with us. switching gears entirely, it was a solemn procession through the streets of london today for the funeral of queen elizabeth. thousands stood by to say their good-byes and pay their respects, including the queen's corgis, her dogs. they were waiting at the chapel for her final arrival. so sweet. a live report on how this historic day concluded for the royal family. that's ahead.

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get an upgrade. and make it shine. no matter what project your tackling, wayfair's got everything you need to give your home a fresh spin. ♪ wayfair you've got just what i need ♪ the world said good-bye today to queen elizabeth ii. it was the culmination of a ten-day period of mourning. hundreds of heads of state gathered to pay their respects, including president joe biden and first lady dr. jill biden. king charles iii led the family, including the the queen's grandsons, princes william and harry, all walking behind the casket. tens of thousands of mourners lined the 25-mile drive from westminster abbey to windsor castle, where she was laid to rest next to her beloved husband

prince philip at st. george's chapel. let's bring into our coverage someone who has been on the air literally all day long, nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons live in london. i was watching "morning joe," of course. i think i saw you 11 hours ago. if you could, take me through the day. >> yeah. and i plan to still be going in a few hours' time, nicolle. it was a long day, but of course it was a long reign for queen elizabeth, so inevitably so. just a moment of reflection. i think when historians look back at this time we're living through, they will look at how introverted our democracies became, how questioning, how anxious. and they were right about the passing and today's funeral of queen elizabeth ii is a key moment in that. because as you're looking now at the pomp and ceremony, very much a military procession, very much a military funeral, a queen, the

last head of state who remembers the second world war passing and perhaps us losing some of the values that she held from that kind of time. values of service and of duty. and that was what was praised today. and i think those same historians will write about whether our countries are able to pull themselves out of the kind of funk that they're in now and reclaim some of what queen elizabeth was about. we had the eulogies in the abbey behind me here and the weaving together of politics and religious leaders, leaders from many faiths here and family. and as i mentioned, the military. one standout moment for me, just seeing little prince george and princess charlotte arriving here at the abbey, tiny figures against this towering abbey, and he's just 9 years old, heir to the throne. how the royal story begins again even as the chapter closes for

queen elizabeth. and then the march down the mile past buckingham palace, that place where the king was born, the new king was born. with all the questions about whether there will be a slimmed-down monarchy, whether even the public will be given more access to buckingham palace. these are questions that will now be talked about in the days and weeks and even years ahead. even as today we were mourning, we were beginning to ask those questions. and i think finally just there at st. george's chapel it will have struck a lot of people looking at that that it was only a few years ago in those same scenes that harry and meghan were married there and how much has changed since then. and that just i suppose re -- underscores how quickly our world seems to change these days. >> keir, you said something on the day she died. we were lucky to grab some time with you. about this maybe stereotype, but

the character, the british character of a stiff upper lip. what i was most moved by over the last ten days were the kinds of interviews you did, and i peeked in on sky news a little bit this morning too. i was switching around a little bit. everyone participated in a ritual of grief. and whether it's covid or whether it's the passing of someone who was so much -- was part of 70 years of this country's history, we don't have -- we're not great at rituals of grief. and i wonder what that's been like for you personally. >> yeah. that is such a good point. one of the things that you do when you're me is kind of stand here and in the modern era wonder why am i here reporting on this tradition that is so ancient and seems from another era. one of the things i guess -- honestly, i'm kind of reaching for it, if you like. but there is something that people seem to find value in. and one of them i guess is this ability that a family like a

royal family have to sort of reflect ourselves in them and at moments of grief we kind of get to talk about grief and to experience it and to figure out what's okay. and that i think is interesting. you're looking at a picture there of king charles, and there was a moment after ten days of stoicism today that the tears seemed to flow. the british character has changed. we still have that stiff upper lip, but we are more feeling, emotional than we used to be. we've learned a bunch of things from you guys, i think. and that's a good thing. but equally also, though, i mean, it's just interesting, isn't it, to talk about our cultures and how we deal with things. equally also it was the queen during covid who reflected back the second world war spirit when she said, we will see our friends again, we will see our families again, we will meet again. and again, the question for this country and i guess for others

who looked to the queen is can there be another leader who can have -- bring that kind of solid as a rock kind of relationship with her people. >> yeah. your coverage has been extraordinary. you've pulled me into it. so thank you for ten days of really incredible coverage, keir simmons. thank you. >> you bet. >> after the break, for us the very latest in that legal back and forth between the department of justice and the twice-impeached ex-president over the classified documents he took with him and lied about returning when he left the white house. don't go anywhere. that's next. t go anywhere. that's next.

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♪ ♪ wow, we're crunching tons of polygons here! what's going on? where's regina? hi, i'm ladonna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to the nasdaq-100 innovations, like real time cgi. okay... yeah... oh. don't worry i got it! become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq when you saw the photograph of the top secret documents laid out on the floor at mar-a-lago, what did you think to yourself? looking at that image. >> how that could possibly happen. how anyone could be that

irresponsible. and i thought, what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods? by that i mean names of people who helped or et cetera. and it's just totally irresponsible. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. but mr. president is putting it mildly. because while donald trump's hoarding of classified documents at his south florida residence was definitely totally irresponsible, it is also potentially criminal. it's a vital distinction the department of justice has been investigating until its review was put on hold by judge aileen cannon when she granted the ex-president's request for a special master and ordered the doj to pause its criminal investigation until the special master completes his work. what followed judge cannon's special master ruling was a legal back and forth between that judge and doj in which the latest step came late friday night. doj filed its appeal to the 11th

circuit court of appeals, asking that court to temporarily block the aspect of judge cannon's ruling that prevents doj from reviewing the approximately 100 documents seized at mar-a-lago in august that had classification markings on them. the department expressed that the privileges the special master is assessing, everything that special master is going to look at, none of that applies to classified documents. here's where they make it really clear. this is from doj's filing. "plaintiff has no claim for the return of those records, which belong to the government and were seized in a court-authorized search. the records are not subject to any possible claim of personal attorney-client privilege. and neither the plaintiff nor the court has cited any authority suggesting that a former president could successfully invoke executive privilege to prevent the executive branch from reviewing its own records."

doj goes on to explain this. "the government and the public would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay. the criminal investigation is itself essential to the government's effort to identify and mitigate potential national security risks." the department argued that while the threats to national security were very severe and very real the former president would not be harmed by the appeals court granting the stay. they add this. "plaintiff's only possible injury is the government's investigation. but that injury is not legally cognizable." the 11th circuit has given trump's team until noon tomorrow to respond to doj's motion. it's where we begin this hour with some of our favorite explainers, our favorite reporters and friends. "new york times" justice reporter katie benner is here. she's an msnbc contributor. also joining us mary mccord, former top official in the justice department's national security division. she supervised the counterinside unit that is now leading the

mar-a-lago investigation. david laufman is back, former chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the justice department's national security division. katie benner, this news broke late friday night. while some people not on your beat were trying to start their weekends. and i want to read one more section from it. it goes a long way toward explaining where the legal debate is. as mary predicted i think early last week, doj narrowed some of what it was objecting to and cannon's ruling. so doj adds this. "the government is investigating potential violations of 18 u.s. code 793e, which prohibits unauthorized retention of national defense information. the records here are not merely relevant evidence, they are the very object of the offense." basically, the classified documents are the crime. right? >> absolutely. and it's interesting too, they use national defense

information, which is the way this is described in the relevant statutes that they believe the former president may have broken. that's important because we saw judge aileen cannon say she wasn't sure, it was up for grabs whether or not this information was still classified. she said without any assertation officially by any of trump's lawyers that he may have declassified it. however, this is not about classification. it's just simply national defense information. and that is something that is not necessarily about the classification system. the department is saying this is not only the subject of the crime but it is something that kind of goes -- that kind of skirts one of the worries in her ruling. >> mary, andrew weissman was here friday trying to explain to non-lawyers and specifically non-national security legal minds what the fight was about. but basically what this filing i think pushes through and makes clear is these documents can't belong to donald trump because they are the government's documents and specifically they belong to the executive branch

of government. so any claim of executive privilege is moot. is that a right read on that? >> i think that is what the government is arguing. and there's been no suggestion here that any of the classified documents are anything other than the original intelligence community materials generated by the intelligence community. and if that's the case, not only are they the government's documents but there's no possible way they could contain any attorney-client privilege or executive privilege information because this is original classified information generated by the intelligence community. and like i said, there's been no suggestion anywhere that there's anything else on there, handwritten notes for example, or notes between trump and his lawyers or anything like that on any of these documents. and that's something i think that the department would have revealed if that was in fact the case. >> right. and no one is saying that he sketched a nude of melania on the back of the pdb and wants to keep it. let me read one more piece from doj's filing to you, david.

they call out, judge aileen cannon for somehow seeming to accept, or maybe the better word is legitimize the declassification defense, which as katie and mary have said, declassified and classified isn't in any of the doj filings. it's all this term national defense information. so doj writes this. "plaintiff has never disputed that the government's search recovered records bearing classification markings. instead, the district court cited portions of plaintiff's filings in which he suggested he could have declassified those documents or purported to designate them as personal records under the presidential records act before leaving office. but despite multiple opportunities, the plaintiff has never represented that he in fact took either one of those steps. the court erred in granting extraordinary relief based on unsubstantiated possibilities." this is like disinformation in the middle of a national security case. what do you think the prospects are for success in the 11th

circuit? >> well, first of all, the reason why trump or his legal representatives haven't made that claim is it would create additional jeopardy for themselves. you know, they have this appearance before judge dearie. i think the department should use this as an opportunity to hoist trump and his lawyers by their own petard. the judge is tasked with evaluating whether there are any valid claims of privilege. and they could put the claim to trump's represent tifds. what specifically with respect to this discrete set of classified documents, at least documents with classified markings, are you saying you possess any privileged interest in or possessary interest in either with respect to attorney-client or executive privilege. and by the way, what action did you ever take that declassify anything? i think the judge can use this as an opportunity to really shorten his task if he gets under sail to review this stuff. there's going to be a lot of complications and the judge or people working for him to review these materials. but meanwhile, i think the

department is hoping that the 11th circuit disposes of this more quickly than judge dearie may. >> so katie, tell us where things stand. i believe both sides are before judge dearie tomorrow. tell us what both sides are preparing for. >> i think the justice department is going to reiterate many of the arguments it's already made in its filings. it will strongly say why it should have access to the classified materials, why it should be able to use them, and it will also try to get a sense from judge dearie from b. his process, what he will want to do and how long it will take. because keep in mind that this legal battle, which i don't think anybody in the justice department was anticipating would go this far, has certainly stymied an investigation that was moving at a pretty rapid clip and was moving toward some sort of decision point for both the career prosecutors on the case and up higher the chain to lisa monaco and to attorney general merrick garland. that is all at a complete standstill, and i think the justice department's biggest concern here is, one, appealing

what they think of as bad law by judge aileen cannon and -- excuse me, a bad ruling by judge aileen cannon and also trying to get a sense from dearie how quickly he will work and what he needs to do. >> mary, you made the point that what doj might want to do or might find advantageous is to get the most sensitive classified materials cleared by the special master and return to work on the criminal case. is that possible or is it gummed up in these legal back and forth moves? >> well, judge cannon did require that the special master prioritize review of the classified materials. but one of the things that was most shocking to me about her order is she didn't just order the department of justice to turn those documents over to the special master to review for potential privilege. she ordered the government to turn them over to the plaintiff's attorneys. so she caveated that with under proper security clearances and

in the appropriate security environment. but i don't know if any of those attorneys have those security clearances and there's no reason why she should be letting them take the first cut, why she should be directing the department to share classified information with those -- with the trump attorneys. in the criminal justice system we have multiple protections for classified information that don't always require them to be provided to defense counsel even in a criminal case. and remember, this particular case in front of judge cannon is not a criminal case. it's a civil challenge to this search. so for example, under fisa procedures, that's the foreign intelligence surveillance act, when the government has to give notice that it's going to use fisa-derived information in a prosecution, it doesn't necessarily have to even provide that fisa information to the defense attorney. it provides it to the court under the classified information

procedures act. similarly, information that might be relevant to a case that is provided to the court and sometimes substitutions are provided to defense counsel. so i think it's pretty alarming here the way she structured this order. and that would mean really what happens is plaintiff's counsel first gets to review it, decide if they want to assert privilege, then they let the special master know that through a privilege log, then the special master provides that to the department of justice and they adjudicate it. so that's going to take some time. if we could just send this to the special master right away, that would be faster. but that whole process, particularly if clearances are involved, is going to take some time, and i don't see the department of justice doing that before they hear from the 11th circuit. >> mary, i don't want to -- i admire nancy grace, but i don't have any of her skill set. and i don't want to turn this into like a legal horse race. tell me what happens to u.s. national security interests and the people in the justice department who are there and whose job it is to protect them while all of this drags on.

>> well, you know, the judge has said there are things that the department can continue to do. and she's actually very confusingly said that they can still use these documents for the intelligence assessment even if that might mean that there is some, you know, inextricable entanglement between the intelligence community and, say, fbi and criminal investigators in that process. she's actually given it to the department to sort of in its discretion determine if those criminal investigators need to see those documents. so she's left the department -- so we've got a couple of things. pp from a national security perspective people within the department are probably nervous about the inability to move expeditiously with the national security assessment. they're obviously concerned about the inability to fully move forward with the criminal case and i think they're questioning what does this mean, are we going to get in trouble if we allow criminal investigators to be looking at

some of the classified because they are part and parcel of the intelligence assessment, are we then going to get hauled into court and say that we're in violation of the court's order? so it's a very unusual ruling. it doesn't have a lot of clarity. and i think it leaves the government's lawyers in a state of really not knowing exactly how to proceed. >> does it, mary, paralyze that mission of trying to assess the damage to u.s. intelligence products? i mean, the news reporting in katie's news organization and the "washington post" is just harrowing. anyone that has worked in the government knows what all of those labels mean. there's intelligence derived from fisa. there's intelligence derived from human sources. there's intelligence from other government -- i mean, there is is -- and maybe you have to work on the government to be so chill by the idea of this sitting in limbo. but does it paralyze the beginning of the process to do that damage assessment?

>> well, you know, again, i don't think it paralyzes it because the judge did carve that out and even said -- you know, one of the reasons why the government sought, again, to have her issue a stay is it said we can't extract the intelligence assessment from the criminal investigators and the criminal investigation because some of the same investigators are working on both and we can't necessarily know what the damage to national security will be unless we use criminal investigative tools to try to determine whether any of this information was transmitted outside of the government or to anyone who was not entitled to -- didn't have a need to know it and didn't have proper security clearances. so that hamstrings the government. but there are other things that the government can go ahead and do and probably is and frankly probably has been doing that since day one when they got these documents back, whatever we are now, four or five weeks ago. so i wouldn't say paralyze.

i would say hampers, slows down and leaves things -- leaves certain things uncertain. >> and david, i guess i drilled down on that because there is a pattern here now five years long of donald trump's indifference to u.s. national security interests. obviously, a normal ex-president, even if he faced some criminal exposure, would on his own i think prioritize an intelligence product that helped guide the major decisions of his presidency. it's another piece of evidence that he was far from the head of our state, he was always prioritizing his personal legal prerogatives. and i guess i want to understand from you, as mary was talking, i was thinking, say, for example, there was somebody at mar-a-lago that helped the government understand where the documents were. if you want to find out if any potential foreign assets had access to the storage room, the same person that would give you the kind of evidence that would help you understand if the information was compromised might be the same person that told you whether donald trump

stuffed them in the folders and moved them back and forth to his office. so it does seem like a very tangible hurdle maybe if paralyze is too strong. talk about your concerns from a national security perspective. >> well, as mary knows well from our time together at the department, one of the scariest parts of the trump presidency was his indifference to protecting national security information in ways that were prominently in the news media, including a meeting in the oval office where extremely sensitive information was disclosed. and we just see that in spades as he left the white house and for the last year and a half at his beach resort. so i think there's an even higher impetus for the department perhaps than in a normal retention case, for the department almost to assume that there have been improper disclosures and with, you know, expeditious investigative action to find out whether there were

disclosures, to whom, when, what, why, all the usual questions that they need to know. but there's reason for concern that mr. trump or people close to him may have disseminated this information more widely in places where it could cause additional damage to u.s. national security. >> it is all so harrowing. thank you for helping us understand it. katie benner, thank you for starting us off. mary mccord and david laufman are sticking around a little longer. because when we come back there is brand new reporting about how russian trolls spread disinformation in our country, seeking to sow dissent after millions of women protested the 2016 election of donald trump. it is part of a growing pattern that not only threatens our security here at home but in democracies all around the world. it's happening all over. we'll bring you that reporting next. plus, moscow's disinformation machine is working overtime in ukraine. where the russian retreat has exposed mass graves that russia

is trying to blame on the ukrainians. the former press secretary to president zelenskyy will be here in the hour. and we have a report from hurricane-battered puerto rico. where power is out on the island and it might not be restored completely for days. "deadline: white house" returns after a quick break. don't go anywhere. se" returns after a quick break. don't go anywhere. it disrupts my skin with itch. it disrupts my skin with rash. but now, i can disrupt eczema with rinvoq. rinvoq is not a steroid, topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day, that's effective without topical steroids. many taking rinvoq saw clear or almost-clear skin while some saw up to 100% clear skin. plus, they felt fast itch relief some as early as 2 days. that's rinvoq relief. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal, cancers including lymphoma and skin cancer, death,

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the biden administration is working to warn dozens of countries and expose new details about russia's quiet efforts to influence and infiltrate and weaken democracies all around the world. a u.s. state department review

ordered by president joe biden found that since 2014 the russian government has secretly spent more than $300 million on political parties and politicians to sway foreign elections and political events in at least two dozen countries. it comes as "the new york times" reports on the russian disinformation machine increasingly persistent efforts to inflame tensions and divisions here in the u.s. with the focus on 2017, when russian trolls posed as fake americans to target the women's march against donald trump, one of the largest single-day protests in u.s. history. it enraged donald trump so much he complained that his crowd wasn't as big as theirs. from the "times" reporting on this, "they posed as black women -- they posted as black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners. but one message performed better with audiences than any other.

it singled out an element of the women's march that might at first have seemed like a detail. among its four co-chairs was ms. san sour, a palestinian american activist whose hijab marked her as an observant muslim." we're back with mary and david. mary, i know people that know russia and that stare at their tactics can bake into the cake their political aims and their dirty tactics. but what happens when they're so complementary to a president like donald trump, who i think he went to the cia and started talking about the size of his crowd compared to the size of the women's march. he sent sean spicer to the podium to -- all those lies about his inauguration crowds had their roots in his rage about the women's march. there's a direct tie to his desire to denigrate and destroy that opposition to his presidency and the russian tactics. coincidences?

>> well, i'm not going to say that president trump had a line into the russian government or putin's regime and knew anything about the fact that they were doing this. but putin knows how former president trump thinks and he knows what he can do to play exactly into his hands. because by then, by january 2017, russia had already been meddling in our election, right? and we know that from the mueller report and from the indictments charged against the internet research agency and other tools of the russian government to really wreak havoc in our elections through similar types of activities. false personas on the internet. amplifying different messages about hillary clinton, et cetera. so this is just kind of a repeat of that but is something that i think putin knew would play right into trump's hands. and it was just part of this sort of dance that they had throughout trump's tenure. i mean, famously trump cited, you know, with putin over his

own intelligence community when it came to russian election interference and did that on an international stage, and leaving our national security officials and intelligence community really just aghast. and so i think this is all part and parcel of that relationship. >> yeah. i mean, you know, the hunt for the secret phone call was probably always misguided and the media's point, david, and if you look at the ashli babbitt martyrdom and glorification, she died in the january 6th insurrection, first person i ever heard say her name in a live television interview was putin. shortly after that tucker carlson picked it up. and trump i think ten days ago did a vigil in support of the jailed insurrectionists and called her a hero and said that the police officer who shot her was a, quote, disgrace. there's just almost a call and

answer between putin and trump and the american right. and that seems to be exactly what putin intended. what is the bulwark against that? we have enough of our own problems here. it seems that he's only pouring gasoline on our fires. >> well, i'm not sure if there's anything we can do to mitigate mr. trump's amplifying russian disinformation. but i am encouraged that the biden administration apparently as affirmatively sought to get ahead of this new wave of russian disinformation by sharing information with our allies. and i have to believe working with the management of social media platforms like twitter and facebook and others to put them in a position to identify russian government, russian intelligence organization personas to shut this activity down. there's some history of showing that that can be successful. so what's required is a full court press of public-private

partnership and information sharing as much as possible to help stem the tide of what is a relentless, insidious effort by this adversary to sow division within the united states. >> mary, is there anything that can happen? would designating russia a state sponsor of terror or would anything put america or the west on a more offensive footing against russia in any of these categories or is he simply exploiting things like free speech and people's addiction to social media content? what is your answer on what a possible bulwark could look like against him? >> yeah. the problem is there are various different kinds of sanctions already against russia and i don't know that any of this activity would qualify for some of the designations you're talking about. i'd have to really think long and hard about that. but part of the problem i think is that we are doing some of this to ourselves.

putin is not creating divisions. he's just amplifying them. so it certainly would be helpful to, you know, squash some of that amplification. but the problems are here and he's not the only one and his trolls are not the only ones amplifying it. we have elected officials amplifying the division sxwz creating polarization. we have elected officials with a veneer of credibility because of their positions of power who are really shamelessly, you know, barely even winking at political violence. it's barely veiled and sometimes not veiled at all. and picking up on any possible culture issue that they can in order to sow more division. so i honestly think we need to do a lot of work here at home. i'm actually right now in pittsburgh at a summit on eradicating hate. and to my mind it's not just hate. it's hate, political violence and threats to our democracy which are all wrapped up

together right now. and republicans and democrats alike and independents all need to just come together and we need to get our own house in order. >> amen. mary mccord, i want to hear how that works out, if you circle back after your meetings there. and david laufman, if you could please be a part of these conversations as well. thank you so much for spending time with us today. ahead for us, disinformation is also at the heart of russia's brutal war in ukraine. it's happening again today. our next guest has had a front row seat to that. yulia mendel, the former press secretary to ukraine's president zelenskyy and the author of the new book "the fight of our lives" will join us after a quick break. stay with us. quick break. stay with us

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become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq as we reported here on friday, investigators in ukraine are uncovering hundreds of bodies including those of children in mass graves in eastern ukraine. leaders from around the world are renewing calls for a war crimes tribunal in the eastern city of izium, where so far more than 400 bodies have been exhumed, many with signs of having endured torture. the discovery comes after russian troops retreated in recent weeks after a six-month-long occupation of the surrounding areas as it has done in the past the kremlin today saying that these atrocities are a lie while russian state media has likened the accusations of torture and killing to nazi propaganda. our next guest knows a lot about misinformation and disinformation that russia has

and continues to peddle as a tool of war against the ukrainian people and the west. in her new book "the fight of our lives: my time with zelenskyy, ukraine's battle for democracy, and what it means for the world," journalist iuliia mendel, zelenskyy's former press secretary, tells us what it was like to work with the man who's now trying to keep ukraine free and independent. iuliia mendel joins us now. thank you so much for being here. >> well, thank you for having me. >> so first tell me what the true status of the war is today. i know there have been some incredible gains but there is still a lot of difficult fighting and a lot of need for continued military assistance from the u.s. and the west. >> well, you're absolutely right. ukrainian army has done absolutely amazing counteroffensives, regaining back the ukrainian territory that has been taken by russia after february 24. so many ukrainians are

celebrating these achievements because we are proud of our army and because the whole ukrainian people we are like one organism, united organism. we're trying to fight this russian disease, you know, russian invasion. at the same time my heart is absolutely bleeding when i read this news and when i understand how many horrors the people were going through, how many people died for nothing in absolutely terrible conditions and we're really afraid to understand how many bodies and mass graves and torture cells we will find more when we deoccupy other territories from russian army. >> iuliia, when i read these reports today, i thought of putin's awarding medals to the russian soldiers who carried out the atrocities in bucha. and i wonder if you think that the story will change, that they won't deny these atrocities at all in the long run because this is one of the russian hallmarks

of the way they wage wars. >> well, this is exactly, the story that you mentioned, this is the story about the importance of the information because russia weaponizes information to undermine the democracies and actually to lie to its own people. that's why it justifies, the kremlin justifies all those atrocities and wars around that it has been doing. like in my book "the fight of our lives" i'm explaining how russia was testing all those information attacks and weaponizing the word to try to divide ukrainians and to try to justify horrible things that they are doing. so they are trying to divide the societies in democracies by using the biggest societal traumas, by using emotions, by using fears and trying to engage people in some conspiracies so the societies become weaker and actually russia can implant its

own narratives there. this is exactly what's happening in russia. they are rewarding those people who were actually doing the awful things and who need to be -- to go under tribunal for war crimes in ukraine. and we really hope that they will some times in future sit under the court and the russia will be accountable because this is about justice. >> iuliia, what do you write about president zelenskyy? what do you know about him that even though we admire him so much from a distance we don't know because we don't see him up close? >> well, in the book i explain how a person from an entertainment business turned into a statement and after a stateman he turned actually into a war leader, for the reason, you know, that he needs to defend the country. and he's done something amazing for which he's prized all over the country. he stayed in the country in the

most important and crucial moment, when his own life and life of his family was under the threat. but let me explain you that in my book i'm telling about multiple trips of volodymyr zelenskyy to donbas that russia had invaded back in 2014. and there were already a lot of military actions, shelling, you know, and everything that we see right now in large scale, on large scale. and you know, he never was afraid to go to the front lines, just to handshake with the soldiers. and even if there were some shelling and even if his personal security was against him going to the front line, he still was fighting security and going back. he was saying which leader am i if i'm leaving my soldiers, my people to stay there when there is shelling? so when i heard that he did not want to leave kyiv and that he would stay with his people during the wartime, i understood, i was not surprised,

i understood it was very common for him. >> we went the entertainment route here in america and it turned out very differently for us needless to say. i want to read from something you wrote in your book. this is from page 205. "ukraine is resilient. we are facing the greatest test and are determined to show our strength. if some of us die in this struggle others will be born with the same honor and the will to defend. we are always at the point of beginning. we ukraiians will never give up, not to russia, not to terror, or any other evil. the spirit of freedom cannot be conquered by centuries of slavery or by decades of abuse or by murder or by cynicism. i have always believed in ukraine and i always will." the first time i read it just now without crying. but where does that faith come from? in your country. >> i'm a new generation of ukrainians. and though i was born at the end of the ussr, still i enjoyed the development of my country as a

democratic country and i know that '90s were very hard for us but we know how much we achieved. and i'll tell you a story that i got a call from the occupied territory to a close person whom i know and this person told me, you know, probably we saw some bad things in our life but then when russians came and they started sealing our toilets and our washing machines we understood how much we achieved. and this is very important because democracy and market economy provide opportunities to ukraine to thrive and to grow. that's why it's very irritating for putin and that's why the biggest autocracy and one of the most aggressive and unpredictable leaders in the world is fighting us right now. we are standing there for values. we are standing there for something that we believe in. we are not just fighting for the land. we are fighting for our homes. we are fighting for our families, on every sphere. and i believe that ukraine will win because this is the country that i belong to and this is the

country that i dream to see as a thriving, prosperous, free, independent in the future. >> iuliia's new book "the fight of our lives" is out now. thank you so much for spending some time with us. please come back and keep us posted and share your insights and dispatches from the front lines with us. it's a pleasure to talk to you. >> thank you so much for having me. >> thank you. still ahead for us, the island of puerto rico taking a direct hit from hurricane fiona. power is out for most people on the island. with conditions worsening. it could be days before it's back on. a live report after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ere.

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and just might change how you trade—forever. because once you experience thinkorswim® by td ameritrade ♪♪♪ there's no going back. five years after the devastation of hurricane maria hurricane fiona has left much of puerto rico in the dark once again as its outer bands continue to pummel the island with heavy rain this afternoon. 1.3 million people are still without any electricity. the power company warns full restoration could take several days because of "incredibly challenging and dangerous conditions." only 30% of the island has running water right now. puerto rico's governor says more than 1,000 stranded residents have been rescued so far from winds and flooding so powerful that they destroyed and washed away this bridge completely. it had been installed in 2017 to replace a bridge that was destroyed during hurricane maria. let's bring in nbc news

correspondent george solis. he's live in ponce, puerto rico's second largest city. george, tell us how people are doing, what people can do to help here and what the recovery looks like. >> reporter: yeah, nicolle. the people of puerto rico are resilient. but even they are just frustrated and tired that on the eve of hurricane maria they are enduring this again. it's deja vu. it's worst fears come true. this storm just blew through, knocking out the power grid. many wondering what it was going to do as a tropical storm, and here you have a category 1 hurricane that decimated the power grid once more. an already fragile power grid at that. and other utilities of course now suffering the consequences. and the danger's not done. sure, the island is no longer under a hurricane advisory, but the threat of tropical storm-force winds is still lingering. right now a break from the rain, which is fantastic, because the last thing the people of puerto rico need right now is, a, another hurricane and b, more

rain. we're seeing flash flooding in areas of the island. people who have had to have been rescued. homes that have been damaged by the flood waters that rushed in and businesses destroyed. and people, at least 2,000 that we know of now in shelters. and that number likely to increase over the next several days as people start to be able to assess some of the damage on their property. it is just a heartbreaking situation. and here we are approaching nightfall. so another night with so much of this island going to be left in the dark. nicolle? >> george, i know that mudslides and landslides can remain a danger for days after, even when the rains recede. and i wonder what the efforts are like to help people now without power, without phone -- the ability to communicate. what do the efforts look like in the coming days before power is back on? >> reporter: yeah, the national guard has been activated and more resources from stateside are coming over to the island right now to help with rescue

and recovery efforts. there will be a lot of boots on the ground to help the people of puerto rico. not to mention there's such a sense of community here that people will be helping neighbors. people here are so family-oriented. so they are willing to give one another a hand, especially through this devastation. devastation. federal aid is also coming to this island. already a number of federal resources are here, and more are going to come over the next several days as part a that disaster declaration signed by, the and the people of puerto rico are definitely going need it. because again, officials are saying the power may take a few days to restore, but that may be some part of the island. other area where is the grid and badly destroyed may take several weeks a lot of people skeptical about how long this might take, so many just watching and waiting. >> is there a sense -- i know the president, as you said, president biden spoke with the governor yesterday. is there a sense that federal aid -- i know new york's governor also pledged aid.

is there a sense that the process, although just as traumatic and dangerous before, that the relationship and the resources may come to the island more quickly because they have all been through this before, and these relationships are smoother? >> reporter: yeah, the governor is saying he spoke with president biden and that they believe more federal aid will be made available to the island. one thing they made very clear is this should not be a repeat of hurricane maria. with the anniversary tomorrow, this is weighing heavily on the minds of many puerto ricans on the island. many reflecting on that storm, many of them who haven't fully recovered from the storm going, here we go again. is it weeks before power? before help? the skepticism level high given the level of damage that storm brought to the island. people, again, rezill yent here doing the best with what they

have at the moment. many hoping this storm moves out of the way and they can start that rover effort. >> live in puerto rico. thank you so much for your reporting. quick break for us. we'll be right back.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> thank you so much. welcome to "the beat." i am ari melber, and these midterm campaigns are in high gear. think we'll be able to show you the scene in the crucial swing state of ohio over the weekend. you see jim jordan talking. j.d. vance was the star of this rally. the wall street investor and author, who spent years publicly warning the republican party about what he said was the danger of trump who he once likened to a potential fascist here in america. vance then recounted, embraced trump, got his endorsement, got the nomination for the senate his, and that may all sound familiar for today's republican party. what is different in this rally is how vance,