the panel tasked with investigating the capitol insurrection wants the public to understand that january 6 was a premeditated and deliberate hit on american democracy, that in the word of jamie raskin. they also want the public to know the people behind it are still out there. keep that in mind as we see a steady stream of news and development into the investigation into january 6th. the latest revelation comes thanks to former adviser and frequent guest on this program, denver riggleman. he's releasing a book as a behind the scenes look at the committee. he writes that a call was placed from the white house to a member of the mob who was on the grounds of the u.s. capitol on the 6th. >> you get a real a ha moment when you see that the white house switchboard had connected to a rioter's phone. that's a big a ha moment.

>> wait a minute. someone in the white house was calling one of the rioters? >> absolutely. >> and you know both ends of that call? >> one end. i don't know the white house end, which i believe is more important. >> so that call that denver writes about reportedly lasted just nine seconds. made at 4:24 p.m. after trump made a video message telling supporters to go home, you're very special. on "meet the press" yesterday, congressman raskin confirms that the committee knows about this call. watch. >> i can't say anything specific about that particular call, but we are aware of it. and we are aware of lots of context between people in the white house and different people involved obviously in the coup attempt and the insurrection. >> in a statement, the committee

adds that quote, in his roll on the select committee, mr. riggleman had limited knowledge. the committee has run down all the leads and digested and analyzed all the information that arose from his work. we will be presenting additional evidence to the public in our next hearing this coming wednesday and a thorough report will be published by the end of the year. regarding the topic of the next public hearing this wednesday, the committee's first in more than two months, vice chair liz cheney made clear that over the last few months, a committee has run down the leads on one significant front of the january 6th investigation. the role of the secret service that day. and the case of those mysteriously missing text messages from the 5th and 6th. here's what she said about that at an event yesterday. >> the text messages themselves in many cases are gone.

there are other forms of communication like teams messages and e-mails and other forms of communication. we have we haved, you know, probably about 800,000 pages of material. i think if you look at what happened that day on the 6th, you'll see that there were secret service agents who were playing a hugely important and very courageous role and i think there are some who you know, have not been forthcoming with the committee and you'll hear more about that. >>. >> we'll hear more about that. what a tease. even with public hearings and a report on the way, the investigative work of the committee shows no signs of slowing down or wrapping up. over the weekend, the panel subpoenaed robin voss. the wisconsin house speaker. panel is demanding to know details of a conversation he had with donald trump in july of

this year. in a letter to voss that accompanies the subpoena, bennie thompson says this, quote, it has been publicly reported you received a telephone call from former president trump in which trump asked you to take measures to change the result of the 2020 presidential election in wisconsin. after you reportedly told trump that what he was requesting was not allowed under the constitution, mr. trump posted derogatory statements about you on social and endorsed your challenger in the 2022 republican primary. the committee preparing to reveal more of its mountain of evidence as it continues to investigate ongoing efforts to overturn and attack our democracy is where we begin today. "new york times" congressional reporter, luke, is here. also, mary mccord. and our good friend, the former u.s. senator and msnbc political analyst, claire mccaskill is here. so luke, before we go forward,

let's go back. the denver riggleman book, how did that happen? >> i've been talking with committee members all morning about this. a lot of them are very frustrated with denver. they feel that he has sort of violated their trust by taking some of this stuff public in this book when they feel like this should have been left at the committee. that said, we have you know, very, very interesting information he's put out there. you know, this call between the white house and a rioter. the committee has investigated it. it doesn't appear that anybody truly knows who inside the white house made that call. so there's, i think denver is raising that for hopefully somebody else to pick it up. maybe the justice department. there's also this information about calls from inside the white house to the head of latinos for trump, who was organizing the rally on january 5th and 6th.

he wants to know more about that. so there is some tension between the committee and riggleman, but i'm fascinated from the types of things he's revealing. >> yeah, i mean, luke, i remember some great "new york times" reporting many, many months ago about the fact of meta data being used by the congressional probe and sort of some parallels to the kinds of investigations that mary mccord would have overseen, but we didn't see a ton of the outputs from that. and my understanding is that denver had an affinity for this kind of data. he talks a lot publicly even about the data and thought this was one of the smoking guns tieing trump's white house to the insurrectionists. was there a sense that that was something that the committee had lost focus on? >> so i think if you talk to denver, which i'm sure you have,

i just talked to him this morning. he is quite frustrated with some of the things the committee did. he does not feel they chased down every lead the way he would have liked. spend money investigating certain avenues. but you know, in the economy's view, what denver produced was a lot of tips. like a starting point for an investigation. probably wasn't enough to publish. can't just rush out with one fact and say, a ha, we have something here. they want to check things out. get the context. find out the whole story before they take it public because they feel in their view, they lose credibility if they were to come out with something half baked. they would lose a lot of credibility in the public's mind. they're arguing for a more reserved, more cautious approach and i think denver wanted to be more aggressive. >> luke, on this one data point that congressman raskin confirmed yesterday of a call

that is connected between the white house switchboard and one of the insurrectionists, someone who has been charged by doj, do we have any idea what universe that person is in or if there's still efforts in the interviews that are left to be done by the congressional committee to figure out who that is? >> yes, so it is a rioter who was charged and convicted and sentenced to a year probation. he's from new york. about 25 or 26. denver didn't want people using his name because he felt like he hadn't established that there was this firm connection, only there was something there to investigate. it was a nine-second call. the rioter does not remember who called him or says he doesn't know anybody inside the white house. we're not clear what to make of that. did he have a friend in the

white house? was he lying about it? what was the person the white house trying to convey to him? but according to the official records that denver has, there was this nine-second call the afternoon of january 6th to someone who ended up getting charged in connection with the riot. >> mary, this seems like a fact that pave may have proven elusive but could be knowable to the department of justice. is that a fair request or assumption? yes. >> yes, i think it's fair to say either getting its from the committee or through other sources that doj,e to certainly they weren't aware of it before, they are now thanks to denver riggleman's interview the other night. i think everything luke said i would really agree with in terms of not only the committee wanting to maintain credibility

by running this to ground and not releasing it without really establishing the context and more that would lend to its credibility and certainly the department of justice would be looking at it the same way. you would never expect them to be publicly saying anything about a call like this until they've done all their work on it and certainly not now. obviously, it's part of a bigger investigation, but i think there's a lot to be known. in even what luke tells us, leaves a lot of questions unanswered about this call. >> mary, we have turned to you lately around the narrow question set around the mar-a-lago documents and investigation and all the legal back and forth. but we sort of get ready to swivel our necks back to what has been riveting congressional, not even testimony. it's almost presentations. presenting the public with television quality productions of scripts and snippets of

interviews and live testimony. it's been two months since the last one took place. some journalists made clear that doj has swivelled and is farther along than anyone thought they might be. what is it like inside the doj to have investigations into the president and his inner circle on multiple fronts? >> when i was there, we didn't really have this happening. we did of course have an investigation into the russian involvement in our 2016 election, but what we're experiencing now is really unprecedented in modern history. so i think at least for the prosecutors in the department, career and political appointees, remember the department is made up of primarily career appointees and most of the people, almost every really involved in a day-to-day operation of this investigation are career prosecutors.

career investigators working with the fbi and others. so they will be very cautious. careful. they will probably not be watching have many news programs like this one and getting their information there. they'll be keeping their heads down and just trying to develop evidence to see really where that takes them and ultimately whether it is sufficient to prove every element of any crime beyond a reasonable doubt. whether that's against former president trump, others in his inner circle or others involved with the you know, entire effort to undermine the will of the voters and interfere with the collecting of the electoral college ballots. >> claire, we know, you know, a lot less about doj's activities as mary's describe them, than the congressional investigation, but one thing we didn't know until some of the interviews over the weekend and some of what became public facing is

that the committee is very much looking at efforts to overturn our democracy by trump in an ongoing matter. they're looking at the speaker, at robin voss. let me show you what he described over the summer. >> when is the last time you talked to the former president. >> last week. >> before or after he tweeted about you? >> before. >> what was that like? >> it's very consistent. he makes his case, which i respect. he would like us to do something different. i explained it's not allowed under the constitution. he has a different opinion. yeah. >> i always feel the need to correct the record. the ex president, twice impeached, put out on social, he's still in it. still trying to overturn joe biden's legitimate and sizable victory almost two years in. >> well, he's not going to quit.

this plan was hatched months before the election. and you know, he got so upset when fox called arizona for biden because it really hurt his plan, which was to declare victory even if he didn't win. and then to declare fraud if the facts were stubborn. he's not going to stop and he's, has a lot of people willing to go along with him. people running for governor in big states thinking this is just fine. this is something that's going to be an ongoing cancer in our democracy and it's going to take a lot of treatment. many election cycles to kind of excise this evil stuff that's gotten in the bloodstream. i think that people, look was very nice about the committee being upset with riggleman. i'll just tell you what i'm hearing is they're furious. it's not that they're upset.

they're furious because what they have managed to do up until now is run a really professional effort with no leaks keeping the facts closely guarded until it was time to reveal them in a way that would prevent, present a compelling picture to the american people and riggleman's out here selling a book and kind of blowing that whole thing up. so they're not happy. i think that wednesday night, they're going the try to pull the narrative back and i could not tell you still to this day, i hope some day i have to apologize to doj, why it is taking them so long to do what should have been done within 12 months. >> claire, you're not the only one. here's adam schiff making a very similar observation. >> i hope it's not too little too late. but it has been very slow in my view incoming.

we're now more than a year and a half of the events of january 6th and still there seem to be at least from what we can gather in the public record, areas the justice department hasn't fully investigated. the justice department knew for example that donald trump was on the phone with the secretary of state of georgia demanding he find votes that don't exist. and had that information for a long time. i don't think that should be left to the fulton county district attorney alone. it may be they're pursuing it very diligently and quietly, but also that they've been very tenuous in not feeling the sense of urgency many of us do about pursuing justice when it comes to all of the multiple ways to overturn the election. >> claire, there is something interesting that we know and we talked about the senate abstract manner, but now we have a real example of it.

when donald trump is under investigation for better or worse, we all know about it. he hires lawyers and gets them in trouble. he goes back and forth with inane sometimes effective delay tactics. we know how donald trump acts when he's under investigation. so you and adam schiff are making a reasonably, may not be right, but it is a reasonable assumption that that may not be too far along. where does that leave us? >> well, i think it's a problem. and i understand this is different. this is never before in the history of our country have there been multiple investigations, credible, fact-based investigations against a former president involving things as wildly different as stealing government secrets and putting them in his resort to trying to do fake electors to take an election that was not his. but i just think about this.

those documents were down at mar-a-lago for a year before even a, and the national archives finally told the justice department what was going on. it just feels like there isn't the sense of urgency that i think most americans want to see around something that has happened that's so dramatically dangerous to the country that we love. >> mary, help us understand why this would be the case. >> i do think the department doesn't want to speak piecemeal and the toerj has been clear when they speak they'll speak through their charging documents and pleadings in court. the department is not only investigating to see if there's evidence to prove any crime, whether it involves mar-a-lago, electors, incitement to

insurrection, they're doing the investigation to see if they have sufficient to see if they can prove reasonable doubt, but they're also considering the ramifications of charging. that's a serious consideration. not only politically, but the department has been accused of being politically motivated. but they'll, they also have to think about the reaction of the public. i'm not saying they should not be holding the former president accountable if they have sufficient evidence to do so, which i tend to lean toward that myself because he's showed no efforts otherwise to conform his behavior and so accountability seems like maybe it's the only thing that would cause a change in behavior. but i do think they have to consider they have trump out there, graham, and others agitating riots and political violence. these are things the department can't just ignore because

they're very much responsible for public safety and for protecting public safety. so i think they have to be very careful. they have to be very sure they're right. they have to try to do what they do in an unpoliticized way as possible if that's possible, and they have to be prepared for any consequences of these decisions. so i think it's extremely complicated and i think that's part of that is what's playing into the delay in addition to things like multiple investigations and not unlimited bandwidth. >> mary, he was the same if not more obnoxious, sort of the perfect word, when you were at the department and it was investigating ties between his campaign and russia then ultimately efforts to obstruct that investigation. were those thoughts and concerns on your mind then? >> so, you know, i think to the political violence i'm worried

about now was less of a concern at the time because we had not seen so much of an escalation in it that we have now over the last several years. certainly we had already seen during the campaign you know, acts of hate, hate motivated by violence and other types of political violence were on the rise, but what we've seen since he was president and even since he's no longer president has really been far more than that. whether we're talking about 2020, you know, encouraging really assaults against state houses and governors for their pandemic related health measures. encouraging armed militias to protect property during racial justice demonstrations and most importantly, really seeding the narrative of a false election well before the election. doubling down on it at the time of the election and encouraging his supporters to use violence if necessary to ensure that he could remain the president.

so and then since then, we've just seen more and more of that. so these are things that were not as of immediate concern when i was in the department as i think they are now. >> it's amazing. tick through them from a law enforcement and domestic security standpoint, it is an extraordinary escalation of his tactics. mary, luke, thanks so much for starting us off on what is an incredible news day. claire sticks around. when we come back, there's more from liz cheney who notably promised to campaign against election deniers this november. she also declared that if trump becomes a presidential nominee in the republican party again, she won't be a republican anymore. this lifelong republican will give it all up. showing us how much the party has shifted in her view. plus, abortion is now legal in arizona including cases of rape and incest.

vice president kamala harris spoke with our john heilemann and these extreme and draconian laws. we'll show that interview to you. and later in the program, an arrogant and boastful donald trump saying he took things that didn't belong to him, secret things, to his florida home after leaving office. deadline continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. deadline continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. it has l-theanine to help me relax from daily stress. plus, shoden ashwagandha for quality sleep. so i can wake up refreshed. neuriva: think bigger.

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i mean, obviously, let it out. ghaa. yeah, i'm not really sure if this is working either. want your clothes to smell freshly washed all day without heavy perfumes? try downy light in-wash freshness boosters. it has long-lasting light scent, no heavy perfumes, and no dyes. finally, a light scent that lasts all day. downy light! we have an obligation to make sure, and i certainly will, whatever it takes to make sure donald trump isn't anywhere

close to the oval office. >> and last thing on this, and if that means if you determine between now and whatever point that the best way for you to keep him from winning the presidency again is for you to seek it yourself, you're holding open the possibility. >> i will whatever it takes to make sure he's never near the white house. >> okay. >> whatever it takes. spoken there like a person who truly understands the difference between saying donald trump posing some existential threat to our democracy and acting like someone who believes that's the case. liz cheney talking the talk and very much walking the walk. that was on saturday in austin, texas, where she affirmed the commitment includes not only potentially leaving the gop, but perhaps campaigning for democratic candidates because the way she sees it, this is a fight for democracy.

>> assuming the margins of victory are going to be slim, what can be done to be sure the integrity of the results will be upheld and the dually elected officials get to take their seats? >> this is one of many reasons why elections matter so much. and it's the point that evan and i were talking about that in this election, you have to vote for the person who actually believes in democracy and that is just crucial because if we elect election deniers, people who have said they're not going to certify results or steal elections, then we are really putting the republic at risk. >> let's bring in john heilemann, host and executive producer of showtime's circus.

let me show you one more thing liz cheney said about campaigning for katie hobbs. >> are you going to campaign for katie hobbs? the democratic candidate for governor in arizona as a result of that? >> i'm going to do everything i can to make sure that kari lake is not elected. >> so -- does that include campaigning for democrats if that's what it takes? >> yes. >> we're talking about arizona. that is a huge deal. she's going to throw her weight. that is a state where just a little bit of that normal like mccain republican vote really is impactful. i hope that was one of the more significant things she said yesterday. >> yeah, i think in terms of like bottom line what's she actually going to do over the course of the next six weeks now until the midterms, over the

course of these next six weeks when she gets free of washington. we know she's going to be on the road a fair amount. look, everything she said 100% is consistent with what she's been saying. after everything she's done and said, there's no ground to gain to do anything but trust that liz cheney is really serious about trying to make sure donald trump doesn't end up back in the oval office and make sure that the republican party she was once a proud member of and is now a less proud member of, doesn't careen further into the arms of anti-democratic authoritarian fascistic impulses. but those specific things, we're all looking for a roadmap. not just because she can be impactful in arizona, which she could for the reasons you said, and in a fair number of states where where going in hard behind democrats and could matter with

those independent voters, but also because it will give us a roadmap and window into what she's thinking, which is right now, one of the great questions that our political culture faces as we head towards 2024. what is liz cheney going to do beyond helps democrats in some cases and campaigning against trump republicans this fall. what's she laying the groundwork for? >> liz cheney i think just became the most important person in mitch mcconnell's life, claire, because if liz cheney decides to put, i don't know, two, three democratic candidates for the united states senate over the edge in terms -- you need one to three point of that republican vote where she either tells them this republican is not palatable. he's anti-american. he or she is anti-democratic. and the republican fails or goes as far as she said in the hobbs lake race, the race in arizona.

or kari lake is going to go back and certify trump's win there. it's a huge commitment in politics to taking away some of the republican vote. they're not the majority. they're not the republicans we talk about, but some of the republican vote the deeply disgusted by donald trump and if she taps into it and motivates it and tells them what to do in november, that could be deadly. >> yeah. it's complicated though because you know, she is such a figure to the trumpists that the last six weeks before a midterm, i can say this from experience. you're very, very focused on how you get your voters to the polls. and what's going motivate your voters. yes, there's still some persuasion in there. you've got to get in a place like arizona, you're right. you need to shave off a few republicans. you need to win a plurality of

independent voters. the question is will liz cheney give more help to the democrats by working on those normal republicans and independent voters or will it back fire and really motivate the trumpers to come out in force on the second tuesday in november? so it is, i get a stomach ache thinking an it because i remember this stuff. you have to persuade a small number of people, but you've really got to get your people to turn out. and i don't know if she does a better job of turning out trump voters than she does of convincing independents and normal republicans. >> you know, with the trump base going full qanon, i'm not sure liz cheney is their trigger anymore. it feels very strange. >> except for one thing. we have no idea, i think all our

admiration and i would say you obviously admire liz cheney and i do, too, in the way she's fought on behalf of democracy and was willing to give up her political career for it at least up to this point, but our admiration for her doesn't mean anything this in terms oof can she move votes in a state she doesn't live. in this day and age, other than donald trump's endorsements in republican primaries, endorsements in general don't matter that much to voters. they have the way they vote that have nothing to do with who's for them and against them. in a general election, does she have a lot of impact on moderate republican voters? it's a great state on the commitment to the cause. hardly ever go out and campaign and beat a republican, but does that move votes or not? these are all untested premise here and as claire said, if

you're in that race on the democratic side, in all these races, you are mostly focused on turnout. especially an election where the one thing we know is that enthusiasm is now off the charts on the democratic side. on the republican side. and both sides are going to be working to at least 95% of their resources to getting out their voters. i don't know if she moves the needle there or not even though i think it's a brave stand for her to take and it's meaningful in this sense. >> all right, heilemann and claire still wanting to know where's the beef. we'll watch that story. something we do know is moving voters. john covered on the circus last night, spoke to vice president kamala harris on the political shift that's happened since the supreme court took away a woman's constitutional right to control their own bodies. we'll play some of their conversation for you when we come back. don't go anywhere. he wn we come back. don't go anywhere.

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♪ there's heather on the hedges ♪ ♪ and kenny on the koi ♪ ♪ and your truck's been demolished by the peterson boy ♪ ♪ yes -- ♪ wait, what was that? timber... [ sighs heavily ] when owning a small business gets real, progressive helps protect what you've built with affordable coverage. another huge blow for the right of women to control their own bodies and access healthcare. a judge in arizona allowing a near total abortion ban. the law was written in the 1900s. it has now gone into effect. the law, which was written one year before the end of the civil war, contains criminal penalties of two to five years in prison for anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion. our friend john heilemann sat

down with kamala harris who called out the attempts to control women and the broader anti-democratic efforts. watch. >> the right of people in our country to have the freedom to make a decision about whether they start a family. about their own body. about who they love. all humans are entitled to certain freedoms and they should be protected. >> there's a backlash. we saw in kansas, she's got political, right? democrats, they want to make an argument about republicans being an extreme party in general. what it feels like is part of your rhetoric has been to stitch that together, but this is actually a perfect window into a republican party that's across the board. >> we're seeing a pattern here. you can see that from the same states and places where you're seeing an attack on women's reproductive freedoms, an attack on voting rights, lgbtq rights, we're going backwards.

republican leaders are trying to get a national ban on abortion, which includes criminalizing doctors, nursing, with up to five years in prison. are you kidding me? >> joining our conversation, erin haines, also an msnbc contributor. this is a lot of what vice president harris has been doing all around the country. really since roe was overturned. a little before that. but really in a focused way. and you know, not only is her message very well received, but it's also really seems to be tapping into this political tsunami that i know you have new reporting out about. >> yeah. well, i mean, look, first of all, let me just say that the thing i was most looking forward to besides football and the return of pumpkin spice latte was the return of the circus, so yes. yay for that. last night's episode, you saw

the vice president doing a lot of what i had been seeing her do on the campaign trial heading into the general election. that is kind of laying out democrats' frames of this election in terms of people's access to freedom and rights and casting republicans as extreme on not just abortion. what that does is it really kind of takes the post dobbs era into territory that isn't just about gender or about faith and it builds on the kinds of things that the administration wants to focus on like who we are as a country and really confronting inequality. they're hoping can kind of galvanize this kind of coalition they're going to need to have victories that frankly that they were not nearly that close to prior to dobbs. but you do kind of have these concentric circles in places like arizona, georgia, pennsylvania, where you've got these overlapping kind of

culture war issues really kind of making people think about the overarching issues of freedom and rights and access to those things and the erosion of those things in this current climate and which party really is responsible for that. and which party is going to be the firewall that keeps those things from being eroded even further. >> john heilemann, i hate any analysis of politics about people finding their voice or stepping into you know, any sort of role that seems like a perfect fit, but that said, kamala harris does exactly what erin said she does. she pulls together this sort of policy agenda into an ideology. fight for voting rights isn't just about pushing back against all these policies propelled by the big lie. it's about who votes, who we are, who continues the votes. and she's putting this taking away of the right to an abortion in that larger frame.

tell me more about your conversation with her. >> well, i think i know a lot of times, those constructs are put on people. in this case, it's one about how the vice president acknowledged and that she came close to acknowledging directly with me. vice president's a hard job. it's hard to find a foothold in it. it's not clear what your real responsibilities are. there are really none in the constitution other than succeeding the president if the president passes away. vice presidents have historically often taken a while to find places where they have toeholds and traction. as it happened in this case, you could see these cases moving down the chute towards the supreme court. you knew not necessarily that roe was going to be fully overturned until we got the leak of the dobbs decision, but that allowed her to prepare for that moment and so as you recall when the leak happened, many people

were caught totally wrong footed by that. she jumped into the breach immediately, did a speech partly because she had been working on it for a long time. so that moment presented itself as an opportunity politically for her. she gave a tremendous speech and the administration very quickly thought because of her background as a lawyer, as a former attorney general, as a woman, as a racial minority, that she was perfectly suited to carry this message forward. i'll also say that joe biden isn't. he doesn't feel comfortable. he knows he's for, he's a pro-choice president, but not personally pro-choice. he's not someone who's been comfortable with abortion rights for his whole life. it was one of those moments where the president seized the opportunity for democrats and wants to advocate this case the best way possible and saw that she would be better at it than he is. so she has gone out and done, met with hundreds of state

legislatures. she's done listening tours. had sessions with healthcare professionals and activist groups and state legislatures and others on the front lines of law enforcement and she has really become the sharp end of the sphere on the most important issue that's changed the political climate in favor of democrats heading into these elections. will it be enough for them to hold the house? we don't know. but has it helped democrats? voter registration, look across the country. women are pouring into the electorate. new voters. women overwhelmingly and those motivated by this issue. so suddenly, kamala harris is center stage on the most important midterm elections of our lifetime. >> claire, i remember you being on our air the day the dobbs decision came down. just about everyone we spoke to that day, you were shattered about the laws that would go into effect when roe fell. we now have republicans acknowledging out loud and on tv

how insanely unpopular those are. i cite the poll numbers almost every day. upwards of 65% of americans supported roe. 60% support ban in cases of rrae and incest. some of the states are moving more extreme which puts them on the other side, with the 7%, the 17%. and the minority on the big questions. karl rove talking about how you know, less than 10% of texans support texas' ban. part of me wants to laugh, but part of me wants to cry. this is what's happening to women in america. >> yeah, the extreme part of the republican party is firmly in control of the party apparatus. republicans all over the country are afraid to stand up to this extremism because they're afraid it will cost them their seats in primaries. so that is the reality and i'll

tell you what the vice president understands in her gut is that the republicans are going campaign on the economy, immigration, and crime. that is the three legs of the stool they're campaigning on. the democrats are campaigning on extremism, extremism, extremism. because in all of the categories that she has knit together, it is an extreme view. they're trying to keep you from voting. they want to make a rapist have the ability to become a father of the child if he raped you. this is the kind of stuff that turns off independent and mott rat voters. and kamala harris understands this and she's doing a great job of pushing it as hard as she knows how. i think it will make a difference in november. >> all right, no one is going anywhere. we have to sneak in a quick break, but we'll take another look at some of the prospects

the gop has put forth for the open senate seats. that's next. don't go anywhere. seats. that's next. don't go anywhere.

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drag the party down in the midterms. the "post" says that gap is perhaps most glaring in pennsylvania. dr. oz favorability is 28 points lower than john fetterman's and mastriano's a consistently more than 30 points worse than that of democratic candidate josh shapiro. erin, this is one of those stories that you read and you are look, well, of course. but when you have even got mitch mcconnell publicly be knowning the bad quality of your candidates, what do you make, how do you manage your own expectations for november? >> well, i guess maybe you scrub your website to start. you know, headed into the home stretch of this thing, look, i'm

in pennsylvania and about the only thing on television more than eagles games are the campaign ads that are running nonstop and they are definitely highlighting abortion which i think is definitely on the ballot headed into the fall and just kind of as a rolling issue that remains front and center in the nearly 100 days since the dobbs decision took fact and as abortion is the center issue. you have fetterman back on the campaign trail apparently holding a rally over the weekend. dr. oz tried to make it thing out of fetterman heath challenges but he is facing scrutiny from his residency to his vast real estate holdings outside pennsylvania. and not to mention his position on abortion that democrats are casting as too extreme. and mastriano his attendance at the january 6 rally and his commitment to appointing if he is elected a secretary of state

that could overturn results of an election that they feel like they don't agree with what the results on. and so places like pennsylvania, a place like arizona and that circuit episode we saw the michigan governor race coming into focus with extremism a center issue there. whitmer a popular incumbent. and i was in the room for that liz cheney interview in austin and it was certainly something to hear her say that she is willing to do whatever it takes including campaigning for democrats to keep election deniers out of office. i think that one of the questions for our country going forward is we know who the former president is. we know who a lot of these candidates are. who is this electorate and what are they going to do? >> and what do you see, how do the crummy candidates manifest

on the ground? >> well, we've only been out there for a week, so i don't want to claim to have my finger on anymore pulses than i do. i think that we looked last week, and in this first episode back at the question of what the impact of the dobbs decision was going to be and there is no doubt that there is a lot of energy out there as we were talking about before among women. you look at the candidates, however, you know, the consensus is that you've got the senate and the house. senate is much more candidate driven. house is much more driven by national trends. and i think that there is kind of a broad consensus in both parties that the house is now -- republicans still likely to win the house, but likely to win it by not picking up that very many seats. not in a wave like fashion. and democrats have one in four chance of holding on to the house. the quality issue is much more statewide.

governors and senate races. and i actually think that lot of the candidates are obviously clowns. it is absurd. but we now see herschel walker, maybe the worst of them, basically neck and neck with raphael warnock. oz is not out of that race in pennsylvania. jd vance is not out of that race in ohio. i'm bad with how shocked those candidates are and they have not been remotely buried by the democrats which tells you more about the political culture than it does anything else i suppose. >> yeah, you're all asking the profound questions which is why we keep watching every day. erin, john, claire, thank you so much for spending time with us today. when we come back, we're getting our first look at the new book by "new york times" reporter maggie haberman, what we're learning from her reporting today could very well pique the interest of doj. e the interest of doj. for strength and energy.

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i just received a beautiful letter from kim jung-un. i can't show you the letter obviously, but it was a personal, very warm, very nice letter. i appreciate it. and i'll say it again, i think that north korea has tremendous potential. and he will be there. i think that north korea under his leadership, but north korea because of what it represents, the people are great, the land is great, location is incredible between russia, china, and south korea, i think that north korea has tremendous potential. and the one that feels that more than anybody is kim jung-un.

he gets it. >> he was our president. can you believe it watching that? hi again, it is 5:00 in the east. still very alarming to hear him talk at all really, but especially like that about his friend and pen pal for the president of the united states of america, brutal dictator kim jung-un of north korea. given trump's affinity for strong men and his pattern of praising anyone who flattered him, it made sense that now in an excerpt published in the atlantic from an upcoming book by maggie haberman, it is revealed that trump's relationship with the dictator did not end when the presidency did. quote, i was curious when trump said that he had kept in touch with other world leaders since leaving office. i asked whether that included vladimir putin and kim jung-un

-- and he said no want to say exactly, but before trailing off, i learned after the interview that he had been telling people at mar-a-lago that he was still in contact with north korea's supreme leader whose picture with trump hung on the wall of his new office at his club. but the even more jarring comment that the ex-president gave haberman is when she asked about his so-called love letters with kim jung-un. quote, he demured when i asked if he had taken any documents of note upon departing the white house. quote, nothing of great urgency, no. he said. before mentioning the letters that kim jung-un had sent him which he had shown off to so many oval office visitor has people were concerned that he was being insensitive. and i asked you took those? and he said no, i think that is in the archives but most of it

in the archives but the kim jung-un letters, we have incredible things, end quote. we of course now know those letters were not in the archives. they were in fact in the boxes of documents 2ru6r78 packed and took to mar-a-lago and lied about giving back. and those incredible things i had with him hoarded at mar-a-lago and not secure included hundreds of classified documents. the storage of which at his florida golf club posed a massive and ongoing national security threat. and maggie haberman also reported that recent comment by trump pokes yet another hole in his team's defense. listen to the clip we played last week and haberman's reaction. >> if you are the president of the united states, you can declassify just by saying it is declassified. even by thinking about it. because you are sending it to mar-a-lago or to wherever you are sending it.

and it doesn't have to be a process. there can be a process, but there doesn't have to be. you are the president, you make that decision. so when you send it, it is declassified. i declassified everything. >> he did say because you are sending it on to mar-a-lago, that seemed to indicate that he had intended to send the boxes of material to his private club and home whereas there has been this line from people around him that this was all an accident, things were just shipped out. so they have tried leaning in on the idea that this was some kind of accident but he seemed to suggest that it was intentional. >> and so some of our favorite reporters and friends are with us. ashley parker, jonathan lemire, and also charlie sykes is also back. you know, charlie, i was

reminded, and maggie such an important journalist of the trump presidency and everything that followed. and trump slips up over and over again. he almost never gets up. he keeps revealing himself in ways that have to give the people who have agreed to represent him as lawyers who don't have any sympathy for him, but they have to be recalibrating the entire defense after what he told maggie. >> that is the thing about donald trump. besides the dishonesty, it is the transparency that thereyste just say what he is thinking at any given moment. and i have to say though that having spent years talking about how crazy this presidency was, just listening to the clip you played of him lavishing praise on kim jung-un or he has a picture of himself with the

monster of north korea up in his office, that is just another reminder of how completely abnormal all of this is. but, yes, what a nightmare it might be to be one of donald trump's lawyers who have to be thinking, number one, what he might say if he is ever put under oath and, number two, what he will push them to say and then even after they have said things under oath in a federal court, many ways he could just shrug his shoulders and contradict absolutely everything that they have been saying. and i think that this process is going to be very interesting to play out. the fact that the special master in effect told them to put up or shut up about the various things they have been saying on social media. a big reminder that federal courts are very different than what you can get away with on twitter or truth social. >> and charlie, we'll unpack everything you just said about criminal exposure. but i don't want to ski over

your point. maggie's book is the second one in two weeks to carry this post-presidentialautocrats. and i don't think that any of us normalize the disgraceful man who was the last president of the country. but it is worth pointing out that as an ex-president, and they are not perfect, but jimmy carter is probably the most glowing example of habitat for humanity, they become global and fill philanthropic. but this is never a fact that deviates from his lifting up of the world's most heinous leader. >> i do believe that his complete admiration for the strong men are a sincerely held

belief. he is fascinated by leaders like vladimir putin, by viktor orban, would you due duterte and kilauea. and i think throughout the right you are seeing a growing recognition that, notice, yes, these authoritarians have a lot of virtues about that they can teach us. we did not admire people who killed their own citizens and took away their rights. but this is very much trump's new brand and you are seeing the celebration behind american conservatives of victories by authoritarians around the world. a deeply held belief by donald trump and he feels no need to keep a secret of it. >> and ashley, excerpts that the atlantic had are probably just a

bite of what maggie's book will include. but is it right that we learned for the first time that he took his letters from kim jung-un that is among the documents that he absconded from the archives? >> going back to when we just found out very early on in the "washington post" was doing a lot of reporting on this, that he had brought things to mar-a-lago that he should not have, that needed to be in the national archives, as our team was reporting a series of stories and trying to move the ball forward, we in an internal brainstorming session were thinking what are things that he probably brought down there, what are things that we should -- >> what did he take. >> right. what are things that we should ask our sources about, right? sometimes you can say what did he take and sometimes you could say you know those letters that every time you went into the oval office, did he bring them. and that is for what it is worth first and foremost on our list of things that we sort of just -- and again, of course you

reported out, you confirm it, but we just intuitively knew that once it became clear that he had brought documents that he was not supposed to bring to mar-a-lago, that on a top list of five or three, those kim jung-un lert letters were absol going to be there at his private gilded club. >> jonathan lemire, what -- the sort of interviews as maggie has written it, and there is no denial from trump, reveals is this thing that i think that you and ashley sessed out in all of your exchanges with him. did you take the stuff? we have incredible things here. there is barely a denial that crime has been committed. >> i was one of the people that he showed off the kim jung-un letter to in the oval office. this is something that he would

do routinely whether to journalists. and just how loose he was with classified information. we know of course the moment in the oval office with the russian ambassador where he blew the cover of an overseas intelligence operation, that more dramatic perhaps than a, quote, love letter from kim jung-un, but classified information all the same. and we know that donald trump likes to show off. he likes to boast. his golf clubs are filled with memorabilia and magazine covers. some of them fake. that extoll his celebrity and power and wealth. so it makes sense of course that he would grab materials do the same to show off in places like mar-a-lago or perhaps med minister and others. but that is not to gloss over the seriousness of what he did. he had material he shouldn't

have. people around him have lied to the justice department about whether they have it and whether they will return it and where it was kept. the list goes on and on and this is one of the many things that merrick garland will have to weigh as the investigation continues. >> charlie, just where the document investigation stands right now, right now doj has been asked by judge dearie to attest to the accuracy of the property inventory. and trump has been given this sort of put up or shut up, but he has been asked if any of the inventory wasn't there and he said that evidence has been planted. to maggie haberman's point, he said on tv outloud that he had it all sent to mar-a-lago and by thinking it, it was okay because he thought they are declassified. what are we doing? do we indulge the sort of lunacy, someone who lies like the rest of us breathe but is

dragging the country through this protracted criminal investigation? >> we've been living in the world of donald trump's magical thinking for some time now and i'm afraid that it will go on for some time. the reality is that we've seen it over and over again and we see what -- you know, how it plays out in the polls. but i think that what judge dearie is doing is really fascinating because he is trying to pin down one of donald trump's usually gambits which is to throw at the ball all kinds of explanations. one claim of course as you mentioned, you know, one claim was the documents were just sent down to mar-a-lago by mistake. it was inadvertent. and then there was the suggestion with no basis in fact that the fbi agents might have planted them. or that there was no classified documentation. and so here is the special master that donald trump wanted and that he chose who is

basically saying, okay, i want you to stick to one of your stories. which story are you going to do? and this is an interesting thing because one of the things that we've learned about donald trump is that he can throw out all the different versions of the story and as each one is refuted, he simply moves on to the next and many of his supporters do as well which makes me wonder whether or not the new phase of the investigation will be particularly awkward for him since he will have to have a story and stick with it. >> you know, ashley, of all of the experts to which we are privileged to get to talk to, and i'm sure your sources include them and many more, even seems to agree that this document investigation is pretty open and shut in terms of facts and the evidence of criminality. what is your sense about how braced for an actual consequence legally and criminally trump is?

>> and his focus might be one of the more problematic investigations for him, but certainly not the only one. so he has a lot of different investigations, legal, civil, criminal to have to worry about. he is a narcicisstic who fundamentally cares about himself, about things involving himself, about things involving his family. and so he is absolutely paying attention. but there are moments when you talk to people in his orbit and he is that typical outraged furious, frustrated and then there are other moments where any say this is not the thing that is an mating him right now. times it would be what is going on in arizona with the election audits. which he also mentioned to maggie in one of the interviews.

you know, what is going on politically with people he endorsed and are they being sufficiently loyal. of course what is going on still with the 2020 election which again is worth saying that he lost even though he has refused the results. so it sort of depends on the time, the time, the mood. >> and so sick that we have to cover this, but as the most influential figure in one of the country's two parties, jonathan lemire, he still has the ability to say up is down and down is up. he has donned a qanon pin as of late. do you have any understanding of this turn to the violent extremist part of his base, qanon? >> first of all, we know throughout his presidency and as

a candidate trump never rebukes those who like him. he did it with the hate groups like the proud boys and oath keerps. keeper. he would stammer and never really renounce them. he was slow to condemn david duke in his original campaign back in 2015 claiming he didn't know who he was. he was in moments encourages violence from his supporters to bang up protestors even suggesting that he would pay for their bail money. i believe it was in ohio where the qanon presented itself and people did not know what to do. and now four years later again in ohio and now later in north carolina and they seem to be, that they are playing music that is the q theme, that people are not preventing anyone to wear

qanon paraphernalia or hold up q signs. so this is trump recognizing that he is not just not wanting to reject people who like him, but realizing that is who is still with him, the hardcore base. qanon probably the hardest core and that he knows who he needs for his political future. maybe he is losing independents, maybe the swing voters have been horrified by january 6 and will never come back, so he needs to expand his voters in other ways and that is what is happening here. and as a final point, we all -- i know viewers of this show are probably wondering how you are always talking about trump, he is a criminal, why are you doing this? he is still the largest voice in the republican party despite all of these scandals swirling around him. a recent national poll had him at 52% of republicans. ron desantis at 19%. he is still in the pole position. that is why it matters. >> and i'm less interested in his political power and more in the grave and ongoing clear

danger. he is the single greatest insider of all the groups identified and grievances. thank you both so much for start us off. charlie will stick around. when we come back, a shocking new look at the real world tragedies and dangers of qanon which has we've been discussing the disgraced ex-president continues to boost. vaughn hillyard has new reporting about that, he will bring it to us after the break. plus inside the counteroffensive that is turning the tide in the war in ukraine and driving vladimir putin to some desperate moves. and later, some of the anti-government protests in iran in years as thousands take to the streets to protest the death of a young woman in the custody of the regime's so-called reality police. regime's so-cal reality police

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we'll be completely up front with you. this next conversation, this next story, is a really difficult one. it involves one man's tragic and ultimately deadly spiral from a loving father to a cold blooded murderer. he killed his wife. he murdered the family dog. he shot one of his own daughters. and then he died in a shoot-out with police. his youngest daughter wasn't home when it happened but she said she knows why it happened. an unhealthy obsession with the qanon conspiracy theory community that developed in the

aftermath of the 2020 election. maybe it is a cautionary tale, but dire warns for the near future because with each passing day it seems donald trump's embrace and lifting up of the toxic bring in vaughn hillyard. >> there are thousands if not millions of americans who have gone down this rabbit hole of the qanon movement dating back to 2017. but for such a long time, most of us had seen it really as a fringe element of the far right. but one can't say that anymore. because over the last month, the former president donald trump himself has begun to overtly embrace this entangle amount of qanon conspiracy theories. take a look. when donald trump's embrace of qanon became clear -- >> we'll fight for america like

in one has ever fought before. >> reporter: the former president in rallies closing with the song -- >> and in no condition to lead our country. >> the music, i think it is go one or go all. >> reporter: that is the title of the theme song. and trump has proposed a flurry of memes on his social media account. but now the conspiracy theories have become vast and violent. >> i believe he has the military behind him and biden will be gone. >> what does that mean, gone? >> he will go to jail for treason. >> will the military help? >> yes, i believe. >> reporter: the movement believes there is worshipping pedophiles and that hopes that donald trump will wage a secret battle with the military even arresting government officials, democrats, hole would i officials and other elites.i ofs and other elites. the reach is enormous and you

are seeing the ideas worm their way into places that they never would have before. but the qanon movement has become more than memes, slogans and internet rabbit holes. >> he thought that he would carry out martial law. >> reporter: rebecca says her father grew isolated and became so obsessed with qanon that he became paranoid. >> he got a gun and tried to kill everyone in my family. he probably would have tried to kill me too if i was there. >> reporter: on september 11, he killed rebecca's mother, family dog and shot her sister. he was then killed in a standoff with police who say that they are investigating any specific motive which is yet to be determined. >> how was your dad before this? >> he was a totally different person. i think i started grieving him before this happened. like i started realizing that he is not the same person i grew up

with. >> reporter: the once fringe movement festered as followers baked new conspiracies. >> people don't have to be on 4chan or 8chan to follow qanon. >> we the people make up q. >> we've all been waiting and we're ready. >> i think that there are a lot of families impacted by this and nobody takes it seriously. >> what would be your message to donald trump? >> i just think that he should have some integrity and try to denounce these people. >> reporter: nicolle, this is a dangerous, dangerous path that donald trump is embracing here. we're talking about folks that are expecting the military to come in and pull off mass arrest, send these individuals to guantanamo bay and execute them and we've also seen family members, friends, gone down the

rabbit holes. and that is the most dangerous element of what the movement is, but then there is the next layer of it, and that is where you see donald trump embracing a movement fueled by the grand conspiracy theories. and in so many ways the qanon movement in those conspiracy theories are at the heart of his campaign efforts here. when we're talking about the fantasy that is the rigged 2020 election, when we're talking about the fantasy that is the idea that there are groomers sex you'll losing children, when we are talk talking about the deep state that is seeking to undermine donald trump and the republican party, those are at the root of the qanon movement. donald trump by embracing them is essentially sending these foot soldiers out to not only spread these words and legitimize them to their friends and family members but also within their churches. you see right wing media continue to propagate these conspiracy theories and it is only leading to a more

increasingly dangerous place and as you heard rebecca say, she is concerned about other families facing similar situations as her and we need to be clear, there have already been other killings associated with individuals who went down the dark tunnel of qanon. there have been kidnappings. this is a serious situation and donald trump is doubling down by the decision to play not only that music at that rally but also consistently posting the qanon themes with him at the center of it. >> and you are very well sourced in republican and trumpian politics. have you met any republicans that have denounced qumpt a non? >> i think number one to that question is that nobody has directly come out over the last month to say into the microphone that they denounce the qanon movement. and donald trump's embrace of it. one of on you producers on capitol hill last week did go and get the chance to ask josh hawley and he said sure it

sounds wild to him, but that is a far cry from understanding just how serious this is in the republican party taking a stand against what thousands or millions of their followers wrapping their arms around. >> charlie, i'm slow to the story. i'm far from, you know, at the front of covering it. but i'm not sure there is anything more dangerous right now in our politics than qanon becoming mainstream by one of the two major political parties. >> no, nicolle, you mention what had a danger donald trump is to national security and we know what threat he poses to american democracy. but the real clear and present danger right now which can hardly be overstated is the way that he is force feeding this kind of insanity into our political culture. the only reason that we're talking about this now, only reason we're talking about a conspiracy theory that argues that the world is run by a kabul

of satan worshipping pedophiles and that donald trump is a messiah figure is because donald trump himself is embracing this, encouraging this, giving oxygen to this very, very toxic idea. and so when we talk about the polarization of american politics, that understates. and it is not appropriate to call it just crazy. what you are talking about is a viciously wild conspiracy theory that is dementing americans. and people take them to guantanamo bay and execute them and this is what people fantasize about, the death of their political opponent. you cannot overstate the danger that it poses to our political culture.

>> vaughn hillyard, thank you for being the tip of our speer out there covering this. it is really upsetting but really important. and charlie sykes, thank you. when we come back, brand new reporting inside ukraine's successful counteroffensive against the russian military and what vladimir putin's latest moves say about moscow's vulnerabilities and the future of a war there.

should concerned should americans be about the prospects of nuclear war? >> we've heard a lot of irresponsible rhetoric coming out of vladimir putin, but we're focused on making sure that we're all acting responsible especially when it comes to this kind of loose rhetoric. we've been very clear with the russians publicly and as well as privately to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons. i'm not going to get into what the consequences would be. any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic effects for of course the country using them, but for many others as well. >> if you can't give us specifics about a u.s. response, can you tell us that the administration has a plan? >> we do. >> that was u.s. secretary of state antony blinken on "60 minutes" last night assuring the world that the biden administration has a plan if vladimir putin were to use any type of nuclear weapon in ukraine.

and reminding would you continue of the grave consequences that he would face. the warning is after a week of intense saber rattling from putin himself. in a speech last week, he announced among other things a callup of 300,000 reservists to help in russia's faltering war against ukraine. and that mobilization which stopped just short of being a full draft is massively unpopular among the russian people spawning protests in 32 different cities with hundreds of people being detained by russian authorities. putin's actions is among a ukrainian counteroffensive that has turned the tide of the war in ukraine's favor. in "time," they say that they have rested back more than 6,000 square kilometers from russian control. and cutting oven any supply lane. and the department game of

misdirection touting a counteroffensive in the south before attacking in the northeast caught russia off guard and it validated arts and -- arguments that billions of dollars would result in the battle find. and sigh simon shuster is joining us and also former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfall. simon, tell us who you spoke to. >> this story was a long time coming. i spoke to ukraine's top military commander in june as they were already beginning to prepare for this counteroffensive. and since then, i checked up with a lot of the military brass, defense minister, as they sort of took the steps that needed to be taken to prepare

for military strike in the northeast. and i say it was a long time coming because before we actually saw in early september the frontline shift dramatically in ukraine's favor pushing the russians back toward the russian border, there were a lot of strikes preparing the battlefield. and they were using intelligence from western allies, they were using long range missiles provided by the united states to essentially weaken the russians, take out their ammunition depots, their command posts in the parts of ukraine that russia has occupied in order to weaken the lines to prepare for those attacks. and then at the very end, they began to essentially faint an attack in the south from the session you read there, it says just that, that they fainted south and hit the russian forces

in the northeast that really sent themfleeing. so it goes in to detail, but the point is that it has turned the tide in the war and shown to ukrainians, to the ukrainian leadership and to their allies in the west that these weapons that the west is providing aren't just being fed into some kind of meat grinder and ukraine can use them to begin scoring victories in this war. >> ambassador mcfaul, so much that we've come to know about the ukrainian characters, simon military prowess in a way that we did not understand. so not just a tenacity and nationalism and sense of purpose, but a real military acumen. these stories are never shocking to people who know ukraine and zelenskyy and the ukrainian military well. tell me how you take in this

reporting. >> fantastic reporting, first of all, thank you simon. and i wonder why the russian services aren't following simon's cellphone closer. because this shows a rather major intelligence failure on the side of the russians. but to your point about the ukrainians, yes, we've talked about it many times. they have been at war since 2014 and i think that that is very important for people to remember. they have been fighting the russians for many, many years. when president zelenskyy visited me here at stanford last summer, he spent the day with us but he spent the afternoon with the california national guard that has been training and working with ukrainians for several years. so i think that putin deeply underestimated those forces and maybe we in the west did as well. we're now seeing the results of that kind of training. it is the weapons for sure, but also ukrainian military

preparedness, their strategy is a rather brilliant operation that they conducted. >> and ambassador, what is going on in russia? it seems like even all of putin's autocratic tools in his tool box are coming up short in terms of being able to turn the public in the direction he wants to turn them. >> he promised the russians that this was not a real war. you can't even use the word war without going to jail. then he said it was a special military operation in donbas, no big deal, just go about your days. and now he's called for a major mobilization, 300,000 people, and now people are saying why are we sending our sons to fight the war, what is it about, are we really threatened by nazis, do i really want my son to die for this senseless war?

and he does not have an answer for that so far. >> zelenskyy and the ukrainians are brilliant taking these fissures and exploiting them. what is happening that maybe we don't see from here? >> i think what is most striking to me about the ukrainian response is how calmly they are taking them. they are encouraging the public in ukraine to stay calm and their response has essentially been come and get us. you know, they are projecting the idea that they are prepared, and the general who i profile in this article, the top military commander in ukraine, he has said that we've already destroyed the professional side of the ukrainian army. now they are doing a conscription. we'll destroy the amateur side of the russian army, excuse me. and so, you know, he is clearly putting on a very brave and bold

face. and i think that as the ambassador said, they are battle hardened, they are ready, they have been fighting the war in the east for seven, eight years before the invasion in february. so i think that the ukrainians are in a good position and that is what they are trying to project in their messaging as we see the escalations from the russian side. >> and it is so great to see and hear from both of you. thank you for spending time with us today. when we come back, another authoritarian regime in crisis, the government of iran is facing to the wrath of its people as thousands take to the streets to protest the death of a young one in the custody of morality police. that story is next. rality police that story is next

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all across iran it is the tenth consecutive knight of historic protests there amid an increasingly unforgiving and crackdown by authorities following the death of 22-year-old mahsa amini on september 16th. three days earlier amini had been taken to a hospital after being arrested in tehran by iran's morality police. allegedly for violating iran's strictly enforced dress code by not wearing her hijab correctly. state media released this video of what appears to be amini

collapsing, they claim she died of a heart attack but her family says she are lying. and in the days since extraordinary scenes women cutting their hair and burning their head coverings for author quote, deal decisively with them. a near internet blackout has come to many regions amid deadly force. from the "new york times" reporting on the story today, quote, at least 50 people have been killed and hundreds more injured or arrested. rights groups say they believe the death toll is likely higher. joining us, an iranian born actress and activist for the women's rights in iran. she's currently appearing on amazon's lord of the rings "the rings of power". this you for spending time with us today. >> thanks for having me, nicole. >> i wonder how easy is it for you to get word from friends and

contacts in iran to understand what's happening there right now. >> so i'm fortunate enough to have a channel where they can communicate with me, so i receive hundreds of messages particularly from young iranians, teens to mid to late 20s, who were telling me they're in dire straits, that they need us to continue to amplify their voices, urging the global media not to give up on them. we've seen the protests crack down brutally in the past, and they became part of history. they never, managed to get anywhere. they didn't get the freedom they wanted to, so they are begging us to please be their voice and please continue covering this. >> such an important point, that we can sometimes make decisions that we don't even know they're making -- we're making by paying attention or ignoring something. tell us what they risk by being

out in the streets and protesting. >> i mean, what we're seeing is they're being bludgeoned with baa tons. they're being hit with pellets and bullets, lye ammunition. there's no mercy. this regime is cracking down brutally as it has in the past. the difference is now people are starting to fight back. you've got the protesters doubling down. patrol vans attacking security forces, tearing down protesters. significant banner of ayatollah khomeini. unprecedented image of women burning their head scarves. they've taken them off and waived them before in form of protest. thiss a first. they're burning enemy in the streets. they're not only calling for an end to the compulsory hijab,

they're calling for an end to the islamic republic. >> what is it about the brutal treatment and the murder that has ignited something that's just under the surface for iranian women and young people? >> that's a great question, before 1979, what people may not know, this is not a cultural norm. cultural norms do not need to be enforced using batons and the threat of death. women exist in the peace wearing hijabs or not wearing hijabs. you were free to choose. after 1979, the islamic republic basically took away, stripped women of multiple rights, many rights. right now, women don't have not only bodily autonomy, they're segregated from men in the workplace, in the classroom, at beaches. they're not allow in the sports arenas. they can't ride a bicycle.

they can't sing or bans in public. they have little to know family rights when it comes to family law and divorce and child custody, the man has the final say. women are not equal to men before the law. and so the compulsory hijab has really become a symbol of the greater fight for freedom for women. and women in iran are educated, far more educate than the men. you see people protesting because they know it's unjust. they demand the freedom wes enjoy outside of iran, many countries enjoy and often take it for granted. and i think this bodily autonomy is something that resonated with women outside of iran, particularly in the west. we owe it to our sisters in iran to stand by them. >> what is it we can do? i think people with stirred by the images and being out there,

we take the rights for granted here, and we shouldn't. what is it we can do here? >> that's another great question. basically what we're calling for is keep her name alive. be very conscious of spelling it in the hashtag. you may think a hashtag doesn't do anything, but we've reached over 85 million treats using that hashtag, which has amplified the message, and the message is the iranian people want freedom, they want an end to this horrible oppression of women that they're facing, but more over -- we just want freedom. people inside the country want freedom. the more we amplify that, the more news gets out. more important than that, we have to each contact our representatives wherever we may be, whether we're in europe or america, and make sure we tell them that we demand an international investigative mechanism to hold the leaders of the islamic republic to account.

we don't have adequate hurmts governance in the world to do that. and we have to be desacrificei ive and unified. >> such a good point and current and ongoing parallel. thank you for bringing these issues to light for us. we're really grateful to get to talk with you. thank you for spending time with us. >> thumb thank you. >> quick break for us. we'll be right back. we'll be ri.

before we go on this monday, president joe biden sprinkled in a little bit of politics as he welcomed last year's world champion atlanta braves to the white house today. the braves completed an unlikely run last october with the title, something that rang familiar to our president. >> the franchise never quit, never gave in.

play by play, you grounded out, and you did it together. one of the greatest -- one of the history's greatest turnarounds, first title in 26 years. but none of it came easy. people counted you out. heck, i know something about being counted out, and i know in georgia you show up when it counts. [ cheers and applause ] >> joe biden was the first democrat to win georgia since 1992. thank you for letting us into your homes today during these extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with katie phang is nor ari melber starts now. hi, katie. >> thanks so much. i'd like to welcome everyone to "the beat." i'm in for ari melber. tonight, breaking news on the january 6th committee, and new evidence regarding roger stone. plus, our live interview with the florida lawmaker who is suing ron desantis over that cruel migrant stunt. and the