♪ ♪ hi there everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. a political bombshell in a critical midterm senate race that completely incapsulates the state of the gop right now. an untested, seenlingly unvetted maga candidate finds himself in the scandal that brings to light, for one thing, his hypocrisy on one of the biggest issues of the election, one in which the republican position is already deeply toxic to a majority of american voters. we're, of course, talking about georgia republican senate candidate herschel walker and the stunning reporting in "the daily beast" that he paid for a

girlfriend's abortion. a woman who asked not to be identified out of privacy concerns tells "the daily beast" that after she and walker conceived a child while they were dating in 2009, he urged her to get an abortion. the woman said she had the procedure and walker reimbursed her for it. she supported these claims with a $575 receipt from the abortion clinic, a get well card from walker and a bank deposit received that included an image of a signed $700 personal check from walker. "the daily beast" independently corroborated details of the woman's claims, but a close friend who she told at the time and who, according to the woman and the friend who took care of her in the days after the procedure, walker who has likened abortion to murder and called for a total ban on the procedure even in cases of rape and incest and the life of the mother is denying the allegations, calling it a, quote, flat-out lie.

nbc news has not independently verified the allegations or seen the documents that are cited by "the daily beast." just hours after the story broke, herschel walk's son, conservative commentator christian walker spoke out on twitter, blasted his father, called him a liar and a hypocrite. >> he has four kids, four different women, wasn't in the house raising one of them. he was out having sex with other women. do you care about family values? don't lie on me, don't lie on me, don't lie on the lives you've destroyed and act like you're some kind of family man. y'all should care about that, conservatives. >> they should, but for now they do not appear to care. both the super pac aligned with mitch mcconnell as well as the campaign arm of the senate gop are standing firmly behind herschel walker, just as they have done through every single stunning scandal and controversy

that has dogged the walker campaign and there have been many. from nbc news, quote, walker has been accused of holding a gun to his ex-wife's head, blamed mental health struggles for that incident. walker falsely claimed he was a law enforcement member, and he admitted to having three children out of wedlock after earlier reports from "the daily beast." an october surprise in the all-important georgia senate race is where we start with some of our favorite reporters and friends. msnbc contributor alexi mccann none is here. also joining us, political columnist for the atlanta journal constitution and co-heft of politically georgia joins us. tara setmayer, senior adviser to the lincoln project as well as resident scholar at the university of virginia center for elected politics. rick stengel, former top state department official, also an msnbc political analyst. i want to start with you, patricia murphy, and tell me how

this is playing in georgia. >> so this is not playing well in georgia as you might imagine. herschel walker, the last 40 years, when he decided to get into the senate race, georgia republicans were concerned because they didn't know everything about him. they knew him as a famous football player, as a friend of donald trump's. they didn't know anything else. they didn't know if he would be able to run a campaign, be able to debate. they certainly didn't know what his background would be, but they were worried. now that these revelations are coming out. there's "the daily beast" story which i think some of his supporters will be able to dismiss pretty easily without a named source, but then the revelations and really just this outpouring of emotion from his son, christian walker, has been like a bomb going off in this race. i talked to republicans who said that they are angry, they're frustrated, they didn't want to be in this position with

herschel walker, but this is where they r. he's their nominee and they're trying to figure out how to move forward now. >> i know some georgia republicans blame donald trump for costing basically republicans control of the senate, for harming the republicans running there. herschel walker is not aligned really with the republicans running statewide. he wasn't -- trump didn't have his way in the governor's race, in the secretary of state race. are there any divisions between walker and camp at this point? >> so herschel walker and brian kemp are not longtime allies. herschel walker is not of the georgia gop in a way that brian kemp is and the way other jop leaders are here in the state. again, they knew he was a donald trump friend, a longtime friend. what we're hearing from governor kemp's campaign, he's working for the entire ticket. he has not come out since all of

this has exploded here in georgia. he has not come out to say i support herschel walker. that's what we were listening for, and that has not come. that's really relevant. it's very important. we are seeing flash republicans like senator rick scott say we support herschel walker 100%. he's not hearing the same things that the governor's office is say, not hearing the voters here in georgia. i think the silence of governor kemp on herschel walker so far is very, very relevant right now. >> tara setmayer, let me show you what another trump-endorsed republican senate candidate says he feels about women and violence. to patricia's point, the bomb that has detonated in the state, in her words, is the accusations from the son. they're about moving six times, the rest of that clip goes on to talk about having to move six times, about avoiding threats of violence from herschel walker.

let me play j.d. vance. >> this is one of the great tricks that i think the sexual revolution pooled on the american populous, this idea that, well, okay, these mirages were fundamentally -- they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy, so getting rid of them, making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that's going the make people happier in the long term. maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though i'm skeptical. it really didn't work out for the kids in those marriages. that's what all of us should be honest about. weave run this experiment in realtime and what we have is a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that's making our kids unhappy. >> the reason rick scott hasn't come out to condemn herschel walker, misogyny is a feature. do you think that argument is being made aggressively enough in the political arena? >> no.

but i do see that women, though, are paying attention. they see what's going on, whether it's the dobbs case or what these candidates are saying. women are registering at record rates. they're motivated to go out and vote. they're looking at an entire party that used to herald itself as the party of family values. i remember the moral majority and their sank moan any, the same party that i'm beached bill clinton for what he did in the '90s. we are a far cry away from that. now the republican party has become a party of misogyny, a party of racism, bigotry, hypocrisy, of rewarding liars and people who are completely unqualified to represent anyone, they're not qualified to be dog catcher. i wouldn't trust these people with the local pound. and yet, you have all of these leaders in the republican party making excuses, bentding over

backward to try to act like their candidates aren't completely out of the mainstream, but they continue to apiece, they continue to allow these unqualified candidates, these extremists, these misogynists, these lawyers, these anti-democratic, pro-insurrection election deniers, they allow them to be mainstream republicans, these are our candidates and they don't back away. why? for power. i think that's incredible dangerous for our democracy. our voters need to pay attention, are these the type of people you want representing you? are these of the type of people you would herald and use as examples to your own children? character should matter, telling the truth should matter. we should stop normalizing this. republicans are continuing the do that. these races are entirely too close. herschel walker shouldn't be anywhere near close in this race and yet it's virtually tied. will this change it? i don't know. i'm not so sure.

>> alexi, there is an important inflection point here in understanding the republican party. it's an oxymoron to describe a gop scandal. i think roy moore may have been the last republican scandal-plagued candidate and maybe alleged pedophilia is the last thing. we'll see in the future if those allegations are ever made, if that disqualifies anyone. herschel walker was on sean hannity last night, probably raised a boatload of money from that appearance. we're in a post-scandal, a post moral gravity moment for one of the two political parties. >> i was having a conversation with someone about this earlier, the survivability of scandals post donald trump has just completely changed in the political arena. you know that as well as i do. people have been likening this to the "access hollywood" moment with donald trump. of course, we all know how that ended in 2016. i think for many people, they look across the country and see

these republican nominees, as you pointed out, with people like j.d. vance in ohio, herschel walker. we look to arizona with blake masters, new hampshire as well. these candidates who are just so far out of the norm and what the president would consider ultra maga, that they're really faced with a choice of what to do. i think what democrats are going to try to do moving forward, this is based on conversations i've had today, is not focus so closely on this one specific story about abortion, the allege ed abortion with herschel walker, but paint a larger picture of a dishonest plan, of a man who you don't really know because they say he's lying about a number of things. those domestic violence allegations you mentioned earlier, democrats in georgia have been running ads against him focusing on those things, building the narrative to target suburban women, rural black women who democrats say herschel walker hasn't been doing well with and is a critical block to

win the state this time around. >> i wonder, rick stengel, how you assess the democrats' ability to say to the country, you may not agree with democrats on every issue down the line, but right now there's a party -- they're not just giving these two misogynists a pass, they're funding their candidacies, this is what they're investing in. if they're going to invest in people who think women should stay in violent marriages and who is happy to ban abortion access for every woman in america, pay for the $575 abortion that his alleged girlfriend had, that is an example of someone who will not live by the laws they preach. what is the -- what is in your view the way to take this message about how bad the republican party is at this moment to the country? >> it's sad to say, but i think

it's another example of the tribal politics that we're in right now. it doesn't matter what herschel walker has said or done. it doesn't matter what color he is. the color that matters is red. he has endorsed the kind of maga line. i think people have sort of discounted for his flaws in the same way they have for donald trump. it will be interesting to see what the polling is. the fact that you have one party that doesn't care about policy, that doesn't have a policy, that is only running for tribal reasons to be opposed to the democrats because the party grievance there, the sons of the soil who have had their privileges revoked, that's all they're voting on. i agree the poll is way too close. it shouldn't be a close poll and i hope it won't be. but it just doesn't go down to a party to have candidates so

amoral, immoral -- usually hypocrisy is a kryptonite for a candidate. let's see who it is here. >> let's ask about the voters in georgia. they'll be the ultimate arbiters. raffensperger and kemp are running, not because they were unopposed but because they bested the trump handpicked republicans in the state. what is your sense of where voters' heads are? let me put up the latest fox news poll on the warnock/walker race. wore knock at 46 and walker at 41. patricia, do you think this is how close this is? two, are we making something by totally nationalizing our assessment of the walker vote in georgia? in your state are the republicans discerning on that, having landed on kemp and raffensperger over the trump picks? >> i would say if this were a

completely tribal play, if this were purely republicans are going to vote for republican situation, herschel walker should be winning this race by five. right now joe biden is at a 36% approval rating here in the state. the state's economy is quite strong, but the inflationary pressures are felt to be very national, and joe biden is getting the lion's share of the blame for that. any republican running in this moment, in this environment should be winning, and he is not. the fact that he's tied or trailing raphael warnock by as many as five points is an indictment on where walker is right now. governor kemp by contrast is at 50% in most polls and ahead at 50%. abrams is an absolute national hero to democrats. that shows the environment republicans should have right now.

that's not what herschel walker has. and this is before the revelations from his son. i have to tell you the son's revelations, christian walker's own statements cannot be easily dismissed by republicans nationally. you can say, oh, "the daily beast" is a democratic super pac which i saw some say today. you can say that's a democratic hit piece, but you can't call christian walker a democratic operative. this is his son who has remained quiet this entire time until this moment. he's saying his father abused him and his wife, threatened to kill them, made them move, as you said, six times in six months because they were afraid for their lives. that is so damaging. even republicans hear that and they cringe. some of them will vote for him anyway because they still believe in him, but many are worried right now. this is a really real situation, a really difficult, tough

situation. statewide republicans want to hear more from herschel walker over the next week, be more transparent, be accountable for the first time and explain this to voters. voters here kind of want to like herschel walker. he's still famous. there's no way to describe it. he's be loved, a football hero. this is friday night lights territory. they want to support him, but he is making it impossible right now. >> patricia, let me apologize the second time for referring to you as stephanie. can i ask you about the state of the debate. it's my understanding that herschel walker has refused to debate warnock. how does that play in the state? >> right now, unless something changed in the last 30 minutes, there is a debate scheduled between herschel walker and raphael warnock for october 14th, scheduled to be in savannah. earlier on twitter there was thought that had been canceled. a macon debate has been canceled. there's still one debate on the books that is not going to include the libertarian

candidate who is an important player in all of this. if the libertarian continues to draw republican voters the way he is right now, that could push this race to a runoff. right now we have a debate scheduled between these two unless something has changed in the last 30 minutes which is possible in this world. >> i think patricia, you're right. i think i saw some of the reporting and chatter on the macon debate. let me show our viewers the ads running in the state. this is a warnock ad about herschel walker's abortion positions. >> there's one issue where herschel walker actually has made his position clear. >> mr. walker, do you support any exceptions to abortion bans? >> not right now i don't. >> walker is for banning abortion even in cases of rape, incest or to protect the mother's life. herschel walker wants to go even further. >> there's not a national ban on abortion right now and i think that's a problem. >> should herschel walker really be representing georgia?

>> again, alexi, that ad started airing before "the daily beast" reported that herschel walker paid for a $575 abortion according to the receipt from the abortion clinic, writing a personal check for $700 to that woman. that story has been corroborated by the woman and the woman who took care of her. as patricia keeps reminding us, the real political bombshell is the son who has been involved kind of on the sidelines, introduced his father at mar-a-lago. he's been around the republican campaign scene a bit. >> it's definitely hard to discount this as a democratic hit job when, as we've discussed, his own son has come out with these really intense videos sharing his own personal experience. of course, he hasn't corroborated the abortion story.

it's clear he's interested in talking and has a lot of feelings to share. it's also clear that republicans are watching that closely because they know that continues to change the contours of how this will shape the race through november. i think that herschel walker is just one of many republicans, honestly, who is getting plagued by his own position on abortion. obviously now because of having a potentially hypocritical stance. even before this, as you pointed out, we saw raphael warnock doing this, but that's because i think democratic voters and democrats running think voters need to be reminded of these positions because republicans are usually running away from how they feel about abortion and what their stance actually is. we're seeing this across the country. there was a flurry of first-time negative attack ads from democratic candidates, governors, senators, house members in new york, north carolina, wisconsin, nevada. all of them were focused squarely on the republican

opponents' positions on abortion. that's something i think you're going to continue to see through november and something democratic outside groups certainly will be highlighting in georgia through november. >> tara, to alex xi's point, overturning roe is opposed by 60% of voters. bans on the exception for race and incest are opposed. herschel walker is for those positions opposed by 63, 83 and 93% of americans, plus he paid for an abortion for his own girlfriend according to "the daily beast" reporting. what do the final weeks of this election -- what will they tell us about the republican abortion position? >> well, i think it's already -- we've already seen the republican abortion position with lindsey graham introducing

a federal abortion ban and others saying it's not just about the states anymore, we need to make a federal ban. they've been very clear about this. this is something that's been in the offing for 40 years, but now the dog has caught the car, and it could backfire on them by energizing a democratic base and the moderate independent base of people who look at this and say, wait a minute, there needs to be some exceptions here. i think bill clinton probably said it best, safe, legal and rare, which is where most people are in the country. it's bigger than just abortion. abortion is not the top first, second or third issue for most voters. it's the economy. it's crime and potentially threats to democracy, which i'm glad people are paying attention to that. all of these things tie together. the fact that i think democrats need to show, especially in the herschel walker instance, but it

ap implies they're lying and they're hypocrites. some people may think, he lied about that. who cares, he's going to vote the way i want him to. negative partisanship is strong. when you can chip away and show he said this, he said that. what makes you think he's trustworthy enough to do what's right for your family, for your community? he can't be trusted. in situations like this, i just hope the contrast is shown because it is so stark, it's so clear what the difference is between democrats and rocks on just basic issues that impact everyday lives. the more they do that the better off they'll be. i just don't think the american people appreciate people who are habitual liars. herschel walker is a habitual liar. he hasn't told the truth about anything other than maybe his name. he was valedictorian of his class. no, he wasn't. he was in law enforcement. no he wasn't. gave to all these veterans

charities. no, he didn't. he's lied about so many things. now this with the ultimate hypocrisy when it comes to morality, paying for abortion which would have knocked any other candidate out of the running just a few short cycles ago. i remember when if you didn't spell potato right, you weren't qualified to be vice president. now look where we are. it says more about us as a country if someone like herschel walk other blake masters, doug mastriano, kari lake, if they get elected, it says more about us as a society than anything else. i think we need to start taking hard looks at ourselves about what we're accepting for people representing us in our democracy. >> let me just clarify. it's not us as a country. it's a republican party. there are no herschel walkers running in the democratic party. it's really ominous when you lay it out like that.

alexi mccam mond, patricia murphy, who i called stephanie for about four minutes, i'm sorry for that. tara setmayer, thanks for starting us off. rick sticks around. donald trump has just asked the united states supreme court to step in and reverse the 11th circuit court's decision that allowed the doj to access the sensitive documents he took with him and lied about keeping in mar-a-lago. we'll dive into that breaking news story after a very short break. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back. what will you do? ♪ what will you change? ♪ will you make something better? ♪ will you create something entirely new? ♪ our dell technologies advisors provide you with the tools and expertise you need to do incredible things. because we believe there's an innovator in all of us.

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we have breaking news to report in the criminal investigation into donald trump's handling of classified documents. in just the last hour, desperate measure, part legal hail mary, attorneys for the ex-president made an attempt to block doj's criminal investigation by asking the u.s. supreme court to reverse a ruling by an appeals court that gives the doj access to classified documents that were seized at mar-a-lago. let's bring on the our coverage "washington post" national investigative reporter and msnbc contributor carol len nick and former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst joyce vance. we have skepticism about jumping on this because it's exactly how donald trump seeks to change the narrative about all the losing happening in the 11th circuit. let's deal with the legal aspects before we deal with the narrative play that trump is clearly making. where does this go? to clarence thomas, as i

understand, right? >> clarence thomas is possibly the controlling senior justice in a case like this, but i have to say that the emergency appeal that donald trump is making is fairly technical and unusual in the sense that he makes the argument that the circuit over this court in florida, the federal judge, judge cannon, that the ap peoples court didn't have jurisdiction to overrule her. if she didn't have jurisdiction -- if the appeals court didn't have jurisdiction over a court in its district, i am confused. i'm curious to hear what joyce will have to say about this, too. i find that, you know, there's a big problem and there always has been with donald trump's claim about these records. his legal team initially said that these classified records needed to be reviewed by a special master because there

was -- as judge cannon agreed with him, there was a dispute about whether or not they were classified. unfortunately the legal precedent and all the case law in this country defers to the u.s. government as the protector of our national secrets. and letting the u.s. government have access to our national secrets, which donald trump withheld from them for 18 months is kind of a no-brainer. they should have access to this, and it's hard to see how judge cannon found sort of legal foundation to say otherwise. now donald trump is coming along trying to get before the supreme court on a technical element with also very shaky legal foundation. >> joyce, i just want to inject the reality of what's happening here. nobody on planet earth thinks that classified documents can be the possessions of an ex-president, full stop. take donald trump out of it.

and donald trump found a judge that agreed to his request for a special master, and donald trump got doj to agree to his pick for special master, and that went very badly for donald trump, so here we go. let me read to it. to the honorable clarence thomas, circuit justice for the 11th circuit. pursuant to rules 22 and 23 president trump respectfully applies to vae kate the order issued by the u.s. court of appeals for the 11th circuit. to carol's point, even though that order was not jurisdictionally before the court. what is he talking snabt. >> well, i wouldn't read too much into the fact that this has gone to justice thomas. he is our circuit justice in the 11th circuit. these sorts of matters go to him initially. i would expect that unless he decides to dispense of this on his own, that he will take it to the full court and it won't be a decision made just by justice thomas. if i could for a second, i'll just respond to carol's comment.

i think she may be sorry that she asked what i thought about the technical legal issue here because she's absolutely correct. this is a hypertechnical issue. in essence trump, his $3 million lawyer, the former florida solicitor general, is arguing this was not an appealable final order. you can't just appeal any order that a trial court enters. it has to be a certain type of order under 1292, a final appealable order, and they say this is not. of course, the 11th circuit has already addressed this issue and talked through the legal insider sort of issues involving granting or excluding a stay, which is what doj asked here. they wanted a stay of judge cannon's orders that didn't permit them to use classified documents. this goes up to the supreme court. it seems like it should be a pretty pro forma discussion. there's real risk for trump. nicolle, you pointed out this

has been the case where nothing good happens to trump, and he could well find himself getting bench-slped by the supreme court. one of the real issues working not too far below the surface is that judge cannon herself really should not have entertained jurisdiction to hear this matter at all. doj has argued from the get-go that she lacks equitable jurisdiction. she made a very shaky finding in this regard. now that entire ball of wax is sitting in the supreme court, and i don't think this will go well for trump, even though this has been where he's wanted to be all along thinking the court would be favorable towards him. >> you said bench-slapped and i said something altogether differently. let me read from "the washington post." as part of the 11th circuit's decision the panel, the circuit court panel, allowed the criminal investigation to use the seized documents, something cannon had previously barred. trump's filing seeks only to reverse the appeals court's

ruling on the special master's access to the documents, not the part of the decision concerning the investigation. where does the legal desperation come from to preserve the criminal probe to examine the classified documents? >> you know, i have to say that in this instance donald trump is a little bit copying the department of justice in one tiny, tiny respect. i'm sure everybody will brace themselves for what i'm about to say. the department of justice made a very calculated decision about what they were going to appeal about judge cannon's multiply flawed decision. trust me, i'm not a lawyer. i say this with great care and also some pause. there was very little legal reasoning in judge cannon's decision on multiple fronts, and the appeals court, almost -- as i said before, almost like

teachable moment, tried to school her in this 29-page decision and said over and over again and said, here is something you need to know about when you decide you're going to rule on classified records and access to them. here is something, judge, you might need to remember about a criminal investigation and when we interrupt a department of justice on going investigation. answer, rarely. on and on and on. the department of justice decided not to pick her apart on every little piece. they decided to just focus on we need access to those classified records because we're doing both a criminal investigation and an assessment of damage to national security. these have been essentially in a beach club locker room, and we need to be sure that their handling hasn't put things in danger, protect the country. human sources, intel gathering methods, et cetera. that's what the department of

justice did. it focused on the one slam dunk part of their case to focus, get the appeals court to see they need these records, and they did win. in this instance donald trump is choosing one slender window hoping that that's the one place he has the strongest case to get a ruling from the supreme court. i happen to believe that joyce is right. i often feel that way, that this is going to be a pro forma discussion. it's going to be hard to say that this circuit didn't have jurisdiction to grant a stay. >> joyce, i want to be reassured by that, but what is the danger of taking solace that this supreme court will do the right thing? >> so this court is a difficult topic, especially as we launch this week into a new term of the court where we know we're

looking to see major rights eroded. but the court, when it comes to procedural issues involving the former president, for instance, when it was asked to pass on cases after the election has been fairly solid. nicolle, i would say the one place you can take heart is that the great thing about being a supreme court justice or a federal judge for that matter is you have life tenure. even the president who appointed you can't remove you from the bench. these justices who have been so resoundingly criticized for having a political agenda unlike any other court before them, if they want to have a moment where they show their independence from the people who put them where they are, this is their moment. it's an easy moment for them to take because the case law here is compelling. i think carol does a great job of pointing out the context here. the context is a criminal investigation with national security implications. and instead of letting that proceeding go forward, like it

would if he was anyone else, the former president files the civil action and tries to get a handpicked judge to shut it down. that's not a process that the supreme court is going to look on with any sort of happiness. it doesn't do anything to improve the mood of the country as it considers whether or not it still has confidence in the courts. this is in many ways an opportunity for the supreme court to do the right thing and fix some of the damage it's done, and i hope for all of our sakes they'll take advantage of that opportunity. >> and if they don't, joyce? >> well, if they don't, they'll make a decision that the 11th circuit didn't have the right to issue a stay in this case. they will, in essence, return the issue involving the classified documents that doj is now continuing to use in its investigation to the special master, raymond deering. it will up to him to review those documents and make determinations about whether doj

can use them. ultimately trump can delay, but he can't deny doj's criminal investigation. in many ways what he's doing, and you'll have to forgive me, i've already used bench-slapped, but trump is very close to committing one of the most serious crimes that my atf special agent in charge, jim cavanaugh defendants used to do, that's the crime of pissing off the police. here where the doj has bent over backwards to give the former president every opportunity to return documents he shouldn't have in his possession, that it's dangerous to the country for him to be cavalierly strewn about his beach house, he's had the opportunity to do the right thing. instead he's made it difficult for doj to assess the damage, to get the country back on a more secure pass. doj may ultimately decide to make him pay the price for that. when we look at these cases that involve classified materials, the cases that get prosecuted

are the cases that involve someone who hangs on to classified material they shouldn't have, and then there's a plus factor, whether it's trying to destroy those materials or whether it's this attenuated pattern of obstruction of justice that trump has engaged in. at some point he buys himself a prosecution with his own conduct. >> carol, i want to just come back to what's at the root of this. since his home has been searched by a court-approved warrant, he has turned to hugh hewitt, sean hannity and the united states supreme court to send a lifeline, a get-out-of-jail-free card. what does that say about the current criminal exposure facing donald trump? >> those are longtime friends and allies who have always been there for donald trump, a sounding board.

chris christie used to be in that group and is no longer. rudy giuliani has his own troubles, as does roger stone. those folks are people he's looked to for basically political counsel, what do you think i should do? what do you think i should do to make sure i remain the popular lightning rod that i like to be. unfortunately in this situation client, donald trump, should probably be listening to chris kise. we did some reporting late last week that indicated that donald trump didn't like the advice that kise was giving him, in part because he was trumpeting what joyce just said, don't tick off the police. make friends, deescalate, get back on the path of saying i'm so sorry, mea culpa, let's get these records back to you, and avoid a real kind of conflagration conflict. but donald trump doesn't operate like that.

and he has found himself over and over again triumphant when he goes to war. as you and i have talked about with joyce and many others over the last few weeks, donald trump doesn't run the justice department anymore. donald trump doesn't have control over who gets nominated to the next open seat on the supreme court. he doesn't have the strings to pull to decide how this goes down. as much as he has judge shopped, ultimately rule of law is going to decide how this happens. his resistance to advise to deescalate may prove really problematic. >> the story that was in the paper today that we'll lead the next hour with is a story about the evidence the government has likely marshaled on the obstruction investigation, the crimes of obstruction are very much a live wire for the

ex-president as well as his mishandling of national defense information and the story that the ex-president woke up to today was about a lawyer refusing to lie and say everything had been turned back and about trump, according to reporting from carol's colleagues, hand-packing all the materials. i guess part of me always has a little bit of pause when trump makes a ludicrous move when the narrative is so damaging to him. >> your original point when we started the story about the hesitancy to cover trump's legal maneuvers. >> i said that in the break, but that's okay. >> again, as a new yorker, you realize he has for decades done the three-card monte defense with everything. these are nuisance suits, he's being cornered. he wants to throw something

against the government. that's what he's doing here. as joyce said, who knows 10,000 times more than we do about it, the court doesn't like it when someone violates procedure. there may be ideological things they will tolerate, but these are the things that they'll clamp down on and use the verb that joyce used. >> bench-slapped. i love it. up next for us, five weeks until election day, steve kornacki joins us on the state of the races and some of the key senate contests we're all watching including pennsylvania where candidate john fetterman is looking to pick up ground there it's a must-win state for democrats. don't go anywhere anything else i can help you with? like what? visionworks. see the difference.

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. there are races where you look at these candidates and it's like mind-bending, how it's possible that herschel walker or dr. oz could be very much in the running, but they are. it's important for us sitting in washington and new york to remember that in pennsylvania, in georgia, in nevada people are voting around a range of issues. these are divided states. they're purple states. they are sometimes red leaning. it is a state-by-state play here and it really could come down to one race which is what is going to be so nail biting until the end of this. >> former white house press secretary, now our colleague at msnbc, jen psaki, on the

democrats' chances of holding on to the senate. with just over one month until the mernls, there's no better place to talk to about the state of these races than our friend and colleague steve kornacki at the big board. what are you looking at? >> a couple of kornacki at the big board. >> a couple of indicators first of all. you look first at the president's job approval rating. typically, this has been the number most related to how the president's party does in midterm elections. biden, if you average all the polls that are out there together right now, it's a 42.7 approval rating. how does that stack up with other recent presidents 35 days before their first midterm elections? here you can see it. it's a point lower basically than where trump was in 2018. a couple of points lower than alabama, a point better than bill clinton in '94. the one outlier on this list was george w. bush, 2002, a year after 9/11. he still had very high popularity. every other president of the last generation or so at this point about has been right there

in the low to mid-40s. and what's that's translated into has been big losses for president's party. you see all of those mid, low 40s approval ratings translated into big losses each time. the president's party lost control of the house. and biden is very much within that range when you look at his approval rating. what complicates the picture a little bit, what has been complicating the picture is the other number you usually see is the generic ballot. so what you're looking at here is the generic ballot. when you ask do you want the democrats or republicans to control congress? well, right now on that question, this is the average of all the polls. the republicans are up 46.45. a difference of one point. when you get a president with an approval rating like biden's, frankly, you would expect the generic ballot, that number to be bigger. what you're seeing here is these are recent midterm wave election years.

'18,' 14, the 10. the opposition party had leads at this point, 35 days before the election, it was 7.5 for democrats in 2018. back in 2006, democrats were up double-digits. 2010, when the republicans won 63 seats, they were up 4. they basically up 3 at this point in 2018. they're up one now. >> so that's 2020. >> oh. >> we've got a graphics error. 2022. good catch. >> the control room caught that, not me. >> good catch, crucial catch. right now. so it is democrats led on this number about a month ago, the generic ballot by a fraction of a point. so it has shifted a little bit in the republicans' direction. >> what's happened in a month? >> that's the question here. one of the things might simply be when you ask voters what's the most important issue to you, if you add together the economy and inflation, by far that's the top issue on their list. when you ask them to assess joe biden's performance on that, he gets low marks.

when you ask which party they prefer on the issues, they choose the republicans. i think when you think back over the summer, what was dominating the headlines, the conversation, supreme court ruling on abortion, certainly. also, donald trump sort of center stage in our politics again. i suspect the balance between the abortion ruling and donald trump versus the economy and inflation i think over the summer, this might have been more prominent. now maybe the economy and inflation a little more prominent. and that's hurting democrats. so, again, it's shifted things in the republicans' direction i'd say in the last couple of weeks. but for the republicans to have the kind of night we see these other midterm, it's got to shift more in their direction. it's only a point right now. they need to get that up to 7 points nationally, ir. >> and the january 6th committee prime time hearings, even more recently than abortion ruling. what was the climate like that was more favorable, and what did that number look like when it was? >> again, the democrats -- this

is an interesting story here. if you went back to the beginning of this year, end of last year, the end of last year, new jersey, virginia governors races. clear signs in those that the republicans seemed poised for a wave. the republicans had a healthy lead in the generic ballot. i'm talking a 3 or 4-point lead in the late spring. and when it changed really was the first sign you saw was right around that june 24th supreme court ruling. and the democrats started to draw closer over the summer. i think the other thing that coincided with that over the summer was you had a couple of things. first a wave of republican candidates winning primaries, high profile primaries across the country, echoing donald trump's claims about 2020. so it brought that issue back to the fore, just as you mentioned you had these prime-time january 6th hearings. so i think trump himself became -- it's not that he disappeared after 2020, 2021, but i think he became much more center stage this summer. and to the sort of voting public, his least appealing

traits came center stage this summer, and i do think it shifted the polls a little bit. but i think what we're seeing more recently here, it's put republicans up a point. like i'm saying, they need -- a point -- could certainly take the house, could certainly take the senate at a point. the senate very much a question mark. they want to be up three, four, five, six points here. they still need -- they need to make more progress to get there. i think right now it's still interesting. you've got a president with a low job approval rating, but the generic ballot is not really matching that, at least not yet. >> no, go ahead. >> so there is a cbs news poll recently that has a kind of enthusiasm gap, a turnout gap between republicans and democrats by about five points that republicans, 79% said they will absolutely vote. only 74% of democrats. what do you make of that? and in off-year elections, is that usually the way it is for the party that's out of power? >> that we actually saw in our own poll earlier this year, a

double-digit gap in terms of the way we do, we say a scale of 1 to 10, rate your interest, your enthusiasm in participating in the voting in the general election. earlier this year, we had republicans that we say the 9s and 10s are the most likely. republicans were by double-digits in the 9 and 10 category over democrats. that shrunk down to 3 points this summer in our polling. again, in the wake of the things i was just describing. so you're seeing more of a modest republican advantage on that right how in our polling. when you look back, if you went back to 2018 around this time, i think it was our final poll in 2018, the enthusiasm edge, the year democrats, a big year for democrats, the enthusiasm edge for democrats was three points i believe in our final poll back in 2018. so we do see a little bit more in the republican direction than the democratic direction. and i do think that's a little bit of what you'd expect in any midterm recreation. the opposition party is typically more voted. but democrats did get a big jump

of motivation this summer. >> steve, next time you're here, i'm asking you how many nights you're packing for ahead. >> call it election week. >> that will be our next conversation. thank you so much. glad you're back at the board and thank stewart stengel as well. for us, the ex-president urging his legal team to put out a statement saying that all of the sensitive documents he took from the white house to mar-a-lago had been returned when they had not been. that reporting after a quick break. don't go anywhere.

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hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. desperate times, desperate measures for the twice impeached ex-president. this afternoon we're talking about the breaking news we brought you in the last hour. trump and his legal team filing what is called an emergency request with the supreme court of the united states, asking the justices to intervene in the case having to do with the classified documents at mar-a-lago. specifically, trump and his team want the nation's highest court to vacate part of an appeals court ruling which would allow the special master to review classified documents seized by the fbi. the timing of this emergency request is of note. today "the new york times" confirmed about earlier report in "the washington post" raising questions about just how honest or dishonest trump was with the national archives. from that "times" reporting, quiet, shortly after turning over 15 boxes of government material to the national

archives in january, former president donald trump directed a lawyer working for him to tell the archives that he had returned all the documents he had taken from the white house at the end of his presidency. that is according to two people familiar with that discussion. the lawyer, named alex cannon, had become a point of contact for officials at the national archives who had tried for months to get trump to return presidential records he failed to turn over upon leaving office. cannon declined to convey trump's message to archives because he was not sure if it was true, the people said. but now we know. cannon's hunch was correct. despite what trump said, there was another set of documents turned over in june. and then stacks of documents seized by the fbi in august. and it does not stop there. "the washington post" sites people familiar with the matter in reporting this, quote, trump himself packed those january boxes. according to these source, the

former president seemed determined in february to declare that all materials sought by the archives had been handed over. and now, again, that breaking news. trump and his team making a last-ditch desperate hail mary plea to the supreme court. it's where we begin the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. "new york times" justice reporter katie benner is here. joyce vance is back. she is a former u.s. attorney and law professor at the university of alabama. with us at the table, frank figliuzzi, former fbi director for counter intelligence, all three are msnbc contributors. katie benner, you've been sort of taking us through the legal back and forth between trump's team and the justice department. take us through what we woke up to today which is reporting in "the new york times" and "the washington post" that trump's own lawyer knew it was a lie when he was asked to assert to the archives that everything had been returned. and then in which he makes legal

maneuvers today asking the supreme court to hold that the 11th circuit doesn't have jurisdiction over florida. >> well, so beginning with your first point, that trump's own lawyer decided that it would be unwise to make an assertion that all materials had been returned because he wasn't sure it was true i think speaks to a long-running issue between trump and all of his lawyers. they realize they have a client who is very difficult and may not be telling the truth, and if they make assertions, they could be in legal jeopardy. alex cannon becomes one in a long string of lawyers who have been burned by donald trump or worried that they would be. that gets to what we see today, the justice department argument that's ensued between donald trump's camp and the department whether or not they can use the materials they seized, whether or not they can use them in their investigation. from the justice department's point of view, they feel firmly, as we saw in some of the unredacted court documents that have been revealed, we see that the justice department was always worried that donald trump

and his camp were not being truthful. and that's one of the things they would potentially charge. so alex cannon's hunch becomes potential criminal charge. now fast forwarding to today, you're right there. has been an extensive legal back and forth between a judge in florida, who seems to be favorable to donald trump and an appeals court that has overruled her. now donald trump is saying to the supreme court, please intervene and decide this once and for all. i think that putting aside the legal merits of this, which i know joyce can delve into much more deeply, it really speaks to how donald trump thinks about the supreme court justices that he appointed to the bench. he feels that they are his and that they will be favorable to him because he put them there. now i don't know that that's the case when you actually look at what they're arguing and you look at the executive privilege questions they would be deciding if the supreme court even took up the argument, but it does seem to reveal that donald trump, again, he thinks of these people as his people who will do what we would like. >> katie benner, to your first point about the lawyers, we pulled together a little list

today. alex cannon, the subject of the reporting today declined to declare at trump's request that all the documents have been returned. pat cipollone, white house lawyer told trump to return 24 boxes of stuff to nara. eventually those boxes were taken to mar-a-lago. pat philbin, pat cipollone's white house deputy counsel told the national archives in a september 2021 call that trump only had 12 boxes of news clips at mar-a-lago. we know that's not true. christina bobb signed a sworn affidavit in june regarding the documents. we know her assertions are likely not true. evan corcoran alleged all documents had been returned. they may turn out not to be true. and eric herschmann warned trump about having gold markets at mar-a-lago. to your point, it feels like in your instance the obstruction

may very well made up of some of these fact patterns. >> absolutely. and the obstruction really -- the obstruction seems to be about donald trump's own actions. we've seen in the reporting that he packed some of the boxes himself, that he knew what was in them, and he was potentially making misrepresentations to his own lawyer. from the justice department's point of view, this is not an issue of whether or not his legal team was not being straight with the department. it's really an issue of whether or not donald trump himself was being straight with the department. now one of the questions that arises for prosecutors is what to do with information like, for example, the fact that christina bobb did sign a document that while she hedged a bit in her language, the document implies that everything was returned. does the department then lean on those lawyers to see whether or not they can get them to essentially flip to give them information about donald trump was doing or saying or how he personally was obstructing an investigation, and how hard to lean on them. it's very rare for people to really flip in trump world or to give any useful information to

prosecutors. we've seen that time and again. so we don't know how that piece will turn out. but that's certainly something that has come up in discussion amongst top doj officials who are working on this matter. >> and i guess, joyce, the most notable exception to what katie benner is accurately describing, this reluctance to share information with prosecutors is don mcgahn, who spent more than 30 hours with robert mueller's investigators deal detailing. the obstruction case against trump, i think six acts of criminal obstruction, their nexus to the criminal act. here that's all out in the open. the crime was absconding the documents, lying about returning them, and the obstruction took place in the interactions with all these lawyers being asked to lie. >> it's interesting that the lawyers are in the mix again. because if there is one thing that they can appreciate, it's the sort of criminal exposure that's attendant to these sorts of circumstances. i find itting to have been

interesting that alex cannon, the lawyer here who declined to certify that trump had turned everything over back in february of this year, that he didn't come out of government. he actually worked for trump at the trump organization and came over from that end of things. and he was savvy enough to realize that since he didn't possess the security clearance, he couldn't run the risk of looking through these documents that were at mar-a-lago. that means that he knew he had an instinct. someone, perhaps the former president had told him something that led him to be concerned that there was classified material that he could not look at. and that i suspect will learn is how trump ended up packing up those boxes himself in january and sending those limited materials back. you know, this all comes together in an unusual way, nicole. when we talk about lawyers as being the ones who are attuned to risk, there is a possible crime here. we've talked about obstruction. we haven't really talked about

misprison of justice which is this crime of concealing from law enforcement the commission of a crime. it's not a very serious crime. it is, however, a felony. and there is a very good law in the 11th circuit from other prosecutions that says if someone is familiar with a crime, and if they conceal it from people who are investigating it, that they can be charged. and so we have the potential for that situation. if people knew that there was classified material at mar-a-lago, and when they were exposed to the opportunity to speak with doj, or nara, they concealed that, they too could be at risk. and those are the kinds of people doj may approach about cooperation. they may choose to ultimately flip and say what they know about the former president and his involvement in this rather than run the risk of going to prison themselves. >> i mean, it is a worst kept secret in political washington what he had and has. the letters from kim jong-un were always suspected to have

been absconded, and his obsession with his own -- he felt like the p tape dogged him for years. so his obsession with foreign leader profiles was always suspected to be among what was taken. it's why i assume you have white house lawyers from 2020 all the way to the beginning of the summer refusing to lie on his behalf. what else does the government need. >> with regard to the attorneys and their exposure, remember that attorney-client privilege will not extend to crimes. so i think the doj is going to go at these attorneys. they are going to say look, you're criminally exposed here. let's talk about this. i think with regard to charging trump for what he instructed alex cannon to do, i think it's there. you have to prove that at the time he did that, trump knew that there were more documents and was willing to lie about it. the evidence seems to indicate

that he did know that. and certainly the more we learn that he packed certain boxes himself, the more it becomes evident that he was quite aware of what he had. in fact, it's personally passionate for him, as you said. these are things that mean something to him. whether it's love letters to kim jong-un or it's dirt on a foreign leader, he likes that stuff, and he doesn't want to give it up. so he's never asserted i didn't do this, some clerk did it, some movers did it. it's him. he owns it. and the more he talks about it, nicole, the more fodder he gives to prosecutors. >> and he never was awash in the substance of the daily pdb. so whatever he curated was, as you said, of particularly keen interest to him. he knows exactly what's there because he wasn't interested in anything else. >> he grabbed whatever he thought was sexy to him, for whatever reason, and carried it off to the residence, never to be seen again until fbi agents found it at his home in florida. mark meadows was shocked when

the biden administration said we need to start receiving the daily briefing. saying to ron klain, every day? yes, every day. shocking. >> let me ask you this about classified material. is it -- is the body of classified material the government possesses a puzzle, and when a piece is missing, they know what's missing? >> that's exactly the way this works. particularly at the highest level where documents can be testimonied, could have markings on them to indicate that if we see two people with number three, somebody's copied one of those, right? so yes, indeed. i think what first alerted the national archives was pages are missing, the parts, the footnote, the photo is missing. so as you put that back together, we now have national archives telling a congressional committee, yeah, we can say with certainty that we don't have everything we should have. >> and committee member, oversight committee member said to me, the fbi investigation is walled off for this reason.

they know exactly what's missing. and getting it back is the only way you can commence the after action damage assessment. what do these delays, even if it's as joyce predicts, what do the delays do the national security equities? >> so first, it's all about national security for me. and i am just beside myself, and i can only imagine what the folks who followed me at the counter intelligence division are going through right now, the professional angst of knowing you really can't determine where these documents went, who has seen them, at what level, and for what reason. has money changed hands, promises been made? have they been displayed jokingly at dinners at mar-a-lago? they can't find that all out until we get to the point that they're allowed to investigate. >> and they can't even investigate people like hey, did he show this to you on the golf course, because of the legal -- >> this is driving trump's move to the supreme court.

let's not be fooleded by any substantive legal argument here. i have reviewed the filing claiming that the 11th circuit doesn't have any jurisdiction is laughable. but this is about delay. and the notion that this would go because it's florida would go to clarence thomas first, this is the moment that trump lived for in terms of why he placed people on the supreme court. he didn't place clarence thomas there, but he knows the supreme court largely is in his favor right now. and so what i'm looking at is no surprise from trump. i'm looking now at the supreme court and the credibility being eroded of one of our critical institutions. what clarence thomas needs to do immediately, but i predict he won't, is say i'm not even touching this filing. i ordinarily touch filings from florida. i'm not even touching it to pass it to the rest of the court that would help restore credibility. i don't think that's going to happen. >> i don't think that's going to happen either. let me -- katie benner, what you said jumped out at me about what trump thinks.

what trump thinks he is owed by his picks on the supreme court. here's how that's worked out for the united states supreme court. 7% -- i thought this was a typo. this is the second time i read it. 7% of all americans have a great deal of faith in the united states supreme court. 22% have none at all. gallup has been measuring public sentiment about the supreme court. it's plunged 20 points in 20 years, and it's still falling, dropping like a rock. but to your point, there is some gobbledygook in here. but trump, at least on terms of all of us having to deal with this, has gotten what he paid for in the supreme court by at least being able to make this move. what do you make of how quickly it can be dispensed with? whatis doj telling you? >> the justice department has no control over this. it really is up to the supreme court to either deny this petition or not.

i think that it behooves the court -- the way the court is structured, you want the see difficult cases of law bubble up through the lower courts with a lot of paper and decisions and opinions going back and forth, a lot of briefs going back and forth. so by the time something does get to the supreme court, they have a lot to look at. that's not what they would have if they chose the take on this case. but one of the tricky things for the supreme court is it is the conservative-leaning body currently. and it's a body that in its conservatism tends to believe in the unitary executive, the idea that all power in the executive is housed within the president. the executive has a lot of power, but that power ends when the next president comes in. the power is really a matter of who is president in this moment. and so i'm not sure that the supreme court would want to weigh a question that would possibly where one outcome would not favor donald trump and at the very same time reaffirm the

unitary executive, or to weigh a question and have an outcome that, you know, favors donald trump but kind of erodes this idea of the unitary executive that many people on the bench have espoused and fought for and used as the basis for other cases. so it's a really tricky fogs for the court. keep in mind, the supreme court does not have to take every petition that it receives. it does not have to hear every case. it does not hear very many of them if you look at it in terms of the percentage of cases overall they take. the number of cases before them as potential cases. >> any predictions about whether they take this case? >> i don't think that they will. you know, this court has been in so many ways a disappointment, it almost feels dangerous to suggest that they will do the right thing. but this is a procedural matter. this is not a difficult matter. there is no reason to interrupt a criminal investigation. and of course, the argument that doj has been making all along is that donald trump has the

opportunity to test the propriety of the search. if he is provided he has the evidence that they obtain shod be oppressed, and all of these issues can be live and fully litigated in that context. that really respects the efficiency of judicial resources. that's the right posture for these issues to come up in. one hopes that we still have the supreme court that's deserving of that much of our confidence that they will get this right. >> katie benner and joyce vance, it's always a privilege to have you, especially today when your insights are so important and necessary. thank you for starting us off. frank sticks around. we still don't know why the disgraced ex-president kept all the government documents that he took at mar-a-lago after he was voted out of office. but when we come back, mary trump will be our guest. we'll ask her what she thinks her uncle was up to, and a whole lot more after the break.

plus, five weeks to go before the midterm elections, we have a sense what is happening politically. coming up this hour, the flashing red warning signs that could put the vote and our democracy in grave danger. there are three emerging areas of concern, and we will tell you about them. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. anywhere. to be clear, we have never been accused of being flashy, sexy or lit. may i? we're definitely not lit. i mean seriously, we named ourselves booking.com which is kind of lit if we are talking... literal... ha ha. it's why we're planet earth's number one site for booking accommodation. we love booking stuff! and we're just here to help you make the best of your vacation. ow... hi...

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as new details seem to emerge every day and we learn more about the investigation into why the twice impeached disgraced ex-president took and kept classified documents at mar-a-lago, we still don't really know what motivated him to take them in the first place.

there are legitimate national security concerns that keeping those documents at mar-a-lago, some of them the most classified and top secret that our government possesses might enable trump to potentially profit off them with adversaries. there is a no less illegal reason that he wanted to use the documents to brag and boast and boost his own ego with members of his own golf club. wow. joining us mary trump, donald trump's niece. she is the host of the donald trump podcast, too much is never enough. i haven't had a chance to talk to you since the search at mar-a-lago. i feel like you watch the news in a different way than we do. when we're still capable of shock and horror, you're of course he did that. tell me your reaction to learning that he took this material that he had people lie on his behalf about returning it, and he still doesn't want anyone to see what he has.

>> well, of course he did that. that's my reaction. you're absolutely right. there is nothing surprising here, and i think we all need to recalibrate, honestly, and understand everything that donald has done to date as a prelude to worse things to come. and if we understand it in those terms, then hopefully we'll stop being surprised. and be ready for the worst, but also maybe do everything in our power to prevent the worst. unfortunately, as you've been pointing out, there always seems to be one person who owes him a favor or whom he's installed or who is a sycophant willing to put their own reputation and career on the line to enable him even further. >> i mean, mary, there is the

one person that helps him in the room at the desk at the office. but then there are the thousands of republicans who help green light what he has normalized, accepting political violence, acceptance of taking classified documents, which was his own slogan about hillary clinton. i mean, the hypocrisy, the absence of a spine to stand up to things that republicans would find objectionable in other candidates, where does the ability to do that, to render one of the two political parties corrupt and everyone tent, where does that come from? >> you know, i spend a lot of time, unfortunately, thinking about that very question. and i don't think there is a good answer, but it is the continuation of a pattern that has existed for donald's entire adult life, starting with my grandfather who was, of course, his chief enabler. i think currently the issue is

that donald has never suffered any accountability for anything he's done. and it looks like some of the crimes he's committed recently are even more serious than crimes he's alleged committed in the past. so what happens is it isn't only donald who begins to feel impervious or who begins to feel like there is nothing he can't get away with, that also extends to those people who are riding his coattails. that's where we get to the point where one of our two political parties has become anti-democratic and proto authoritarian and fascist. >> so much of what you i think have filled in terms of the blanks for me is understanding the length of the patterns. so i've only watched the patterns since he has been a public figure in political life. but you've seen the patterns

your whole life. that everything is a lie. that if you scratch, it's all fake. whatever he is accusing someone of doing is what he has done to others. and it's particularly acute when you watch the accusations about the fbi and doj. when you look at him as still sitting atop the republican party, and you think about a second trump term, what are you afraid of? >> i'm afraid that that signals the end of the american experiment. i've been saying that for a while. i think you and i spoke about that before the 2020 election. and it's even more true now because we're even farther down the road than we were two years ago. so i don't think we have two years, though. i think we have until november 2022 to make sure that the democrats retain power in the house and increase their majority in the senate, because

if they don't, then that gives donald a two-year runway to continue to rig the system in his favor, for the republicans to feel completely unbound by any rules or constraints. so we are running out of time. and i wish more were being done to help the american people understand that this election is about democracy. it's not about republicans versus democrats anymore. >> mary, someone who has done a lot to turn the focus on republicans, using republicans is liz cheney. and i think the public hearings this summer where she and bennie thompson and the members of the committee relied primarily on republican messengers may have had an impact on turning democracy to the top tier issue for voters.

but liz cheney voted for trump in 2020. i welcome her to the fight. but she thought he was an acceptable choice to be the country's commander in chief in november. what do you make of how long it takes people to realize how dangerous he is? >> well, i think it's because he's useful to them. liz cheney did not object to most of what donald wanted passed as legislation, or what he was willing to allow in his administration. for her the line was insurrection, which as you said, good for her. welcome to the fight. but up until then, she was perfectly comfortable with the destruction of voting rights in this country. she is perfectly comfortable with the fact that american women are now second class citizens and cannot have access to adequate health care in more than half of the states in this country.

so, you know, her vision -- her definition of democracy is a quite narrow one. and the dangers are much broader than insurrection, which is shocking, because that's a pretty dangerous thing, isn't it? but we see the supreme court poised right now to continue taking a sledge hammer to the voting rights act, which is just another way in which the republican party will be empowered to do away with the few remaining democratic institutions we have. >> mary, i know you don't have a crystal ball, but you do have more years of watching donald trump and his patterns and his patterns of enablers. how do you think the story ends? >> wow. well, i -- i don't know obviously with any certainty how it ends, but i can tell you how

it should end. it should end with him in indicted and convicted and -- well, adequately punished. i don't know that we'll ever see donald in prison. and not just him. all of his enablers. if we are to rescue our two-party system, if we are to set things right, then all of his enablers also need to be held accountable, along with those people in the senate and house who were perfectly happy to support an insurrection. but we cannot count out the possibility that if justice doesn't come swiftly enough and donald recognizes the danger to be as serious as it actually is, he will run again because he won't have a choice. and if that is allowed to happen, we need to be prepared for even worse than we've seen so far in terms of the incitement of violence, in terms of the cooperating of conspiracy

theories in terms of doing anything in his power to take us down if he thinks he is going down. >> mary trump, as always a pleasure and a privilege to talk to you. although it is always very, very, very daunting. thank you so much for spending some time with us today. from conspiracy theories and domestic violence extremism to poll workers themselves, there are grave new threats to democracy five weeks ahead of the next election. we'll look at the newest warning signs after a quick break. stay with us. what will you do? ♪ what will you change? ♪ will you make something better? ♪ will you create something entirely new? ♪ our dell technologies advisors provide you with the tools and expertise you need to do incredible things. because we believe there's an innovator in all of us.

there are and where new warnings this week about the wide ranging threats to democracy we have talked about so much here on this program over the last few years, and how the midterms five weeks away could make our break our future elections. there are new report out today that highlights the growing fears that 2020 bad faith election deniers have infiltrated election offices as poll workers to say nothing of the other many deniers on the ballots running as republican nominees for big and important offices. some already promising fife weeks out not to accept the results of the election if they lose. the atlantic's tim alberta calls them bad losers. the midterms he says could be the last chance to stop them if republican voters finally realize and care that their being duped.

alberta write this. the great threat is no longer machines malfunctioning or ballots being spoiled. it is the actual theft of an election. it is the brazen abuse of power that requires not only bad actors in high places, but the tacit consent of the voters who put them there. this makes for a terrifying scenario in 2024. but first, a crucial test in 2022. let's bring in former white house press secretary and msnbc political analyst robert gibbs. frank figliuzzi is back with us. first, frank, tell me how real this threat is. which we have to stop thinking about this as well, let's cross our fingers and hope for best in the midterms. i'm here to tell you the threat and risk picture has already developed. in key precincts, states, counties, from local county, state, secretary of state, they've put people in place for the express purpose of fulfilling a strategy. what's the strategy? look at steve bannon, who has said we don't need to win. we simply need to make you doubt the outcome. look at roger stone who has said

on video, we just claim victory. that's all we have to do. >> rudy said it too on election day. >> exactly. i don't want anybody to feel surprised when we have near violence or actual violence around the midterms in certain places. and it's not hard to figure out where that's going to be. you develop a matrix. one line in the matrix would be where have the people been elected where they're placed there surely to intervene in the vote. particularly focus on secretaries of state who are there for one purpose only, intervene in the vote. then look at the key, hot, closely contested races, particularly in the senate. then intersect that with where things could go wrong if they don't win because of the presence of domestic terror groups. >> do you want to do this? should we pick arizona? oui got the fraudit there. carrie lake, someone positioned as a candidate is to overturn

the results of the 2020 election. say she loses or the senate race there might be closer. play this out for me. so there is a result -- it seems there are a can couple of categories. there is a result, and it's close, and we're all watching it. but there is a result that's not close. the republican refuses to concede. then what? >> i think it's an ugly time. arizona is near or at the top of my list, but i would throw in georgia and florida as well. and i think the presence of groups on private chat rooms now that we're monitoring are actually talking about the midterms already. >> wow. >> look, when you -- >> proud boys and oath keepers and militias? >> and even more -- it pains me to say that. there are even more fringe groups than proud boys and oath keepers. and when you set the expectation among the population that we're going to win, and then you announce we have won, then it starts to look like, we didn't really win. there is a violent time there. you're going to see people go to the court system, are the judges

maga or not? the total breakdown of the system could occur in two, three, four states. and we better preprepared for that because they told what's they're going to do, and they're going to do it. >> you and i first worked in campaigns. i won't say we were the most skilled workers in the american economy. but we have a loft skills. they did not include this. what does it say to work on a campaign now? >> well, look, i think the threats of violence for campaign workers, for campaign official, even for elected officials now is really never been higher. what gives me pause just listening to what you all just discussed and knowing a background in campaigns, nicole, we're five weeks out. and you can only imagine what is going to be said publicly and privately four weeks out. and how that gets ramped up three weeks out, and then two weeks out and then one week out. so i get really worried that

this is going to continue. this knot is only going to get tied stronger as we get closer to the election, because that's what you do to excite a base. and if that base thinks you can't lose, being confronted with that is going to lead to i fear the actual taking place of violence. >> so anyone that thinks that 2020 was the crisis for democracy hasn't seen anything yet. in 2022, 60% of all americans will have an election denier on the ballot in front of them. you've got less faith now in our elections than we had two years ago. robert, how would you counsel politicians to conduct themselves on election night? >> yeah, well, certainly you hope that -- and i don't think this is going to be true for a

lot of people, particularly election deniers. words are obviously going to matter. on both election night but in that lead-up to election night. i get very concerned, nicole. you and i had this election before the 2020 election. i was worried about violence at the polls. and i was thankfully wrong about violence at the polls. but i worry that where we left off in that election and where we started in this one is at a tension rate that's far higher. and that's what scares me. i think if you see things that are happening that you know shouldn't be happening, it's incumbent upon poll workers, campaign workers, employees to say something so that nothing goes unnoticed in what i think will be a very closely watched election. >> we know from the public january 6th hearings that poll workers have been targets of

donald trump and his maga enablers or allies in the republican party, what they did to shea moss and ruby freeman is beyond a disgrace. should it be a crime. here's what they're up to now. this is based on politico reporting. michigan in particular has been a hot spot for far right candidate for governor who lost the gop primary, encourage poll workers to unplug election equipment if they believe something is wrong. a michigan gop organization encouraged poll workers to ignore rules barring cell phones in polling places and vote-counting centers. and just last week the clerk of kent county, michigan, alleged a witness saw a poll worker inserting a usb into a poll book. so the poll workers themselves taking unprecedented risk to

their own safety and reputations, if you look at what trump and his allies have done to people in the past. now also face the potential for strife and confrontation among the actual poll workers. >> again, this is not random or haphazard. it's part of a strategy to place people as observers or in local registrar of voter office twhos can have the access to unplug. it's kind of ironic. we've talked endlessly about the cyber security of an election and foreign adversaries which we haven't even discussed yet. but right now we're talking about good old-fashioned unplugging. >> right, high-tech. >> it's almost like hey, god dern it, they got the cyber security thing down now, we need to go physical. and that's where they're going. let me layer in the foreign threat, because our adversaries are looking at all of this, and they're going you know what? if we just mess with one or two swing states in one or two counties we throw this into total chaos.

and give the gop a valid reason to scream. look at this. this is chinese signature and attribution. look at this. this is a russian poking their head into the cyberspace of our election. now we have real problems on our hands because there is legitimacy to the argument that some foreign adversary messed with us. >> i'm going to need both of you to stick around. i want to dive into this and what chris krebs got fired for it, right? we know even trump's top election official was able to secure our elections. i want to talk about how we protect our elections from threats foreign and domestic. that's on the other side of a quick break. don't go anywhere. anywhere.

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could seek to spread or amplify false or exaggerated claims that u.s. election infrastructure was compromised. moscow and other actors don't appear to be targeting the hacking campaigns, aimed at new infrastructure or creating content to distribute as russia did in 2016 and subsequent elections officials said, but they are always innovating. what does the threat look like from foreign actors? >> let me borrow a phrase from steve bannon -- we don't need to

hack, we just need to say we did. layer in over this whole domestic threat of people unplugging voting machines. now layer in an adversary say, we screwed that up in michigan, whether they did or not, it's chaos. if i were an adversary, china, russia, north korea, iran, why wouldn't i do that? >> it's a terrible lie. robert gibbs, we worked in politics in hindsight in what seems lik a quainter time. how do you not white house -- when you've n got half of the country who doesn't accept you as the legitimate president? >> it's a great question. thequ good news is there are cybersecurity experts and intelligence experts that are monitoring this. i have no doubt the state department and even the white house will countries about this and i hope we're particularly vigilant in russia as things go

south for vladimir putin in ukraine,ir i have to imagine the are plans in and around his desk to get -- to do something nefarious around our elections. as frank said, it just doesn't make sense that they wouldn't. >> robert gibbs and frank begluzzi, we'll continue to cover what to expect in terms of how people with expected to vote, but i feel it's important to cover what the national security and domestic security picture looks like. we'll do that frequently. thank you for spending time with us. quick break for us. we'll be right back. ♪wow, uh-huh♪ advantage: me! can't wait 'til i turn 65! take advantage with an aarp medicare advantage plan... only from unitedhealthcare. i missed a lot of things when i was away. you know, cancer, chemo, covid, that kind of away.

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one more thing for us, an update on ukraine -- president biden spoke today with ukrainian president zelenskyy to reiterate that the president will never recognize russia's annexation of territory in ukraine, backing that up with $625 million in assistance. it comes in a package of weapons ammunition and equipment for the ukrainian people to aid their forces on the battlefield as ukraine continues to regain territory against the russian occupation. another break for us. we will be right back. will be . ♪♪ great value starting at six dollars. only from ihop. download the app and earn free food with every order. okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete balanced nutrition for strength and energy. woo hoo!

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicolle. thanks so much. welcome to "the beat." i'm ari melber. it is good to be back with you. we're tracking several stories at this hour. donald trump just made his unusual appeal to the supreme court in the classified documents probe. i also have some important civil rights developments for you later tonight. our top story right now is how women's rights and abortion continue to upsend these midterms. it's a story that in politics tonight has two lanes. first, the growing mobilization of women and women's rights supporters eyeing the midterms as we have an election here that they say will be the chief way in the nation to oppose the overturning a roe, a dynamic you see on display here that already registered in the traditionally republican s