it's 4:00 in new york. there's a new twist, i wish i could say it was shocking, in the scandal engulfing georgia's candidate herschel walker. it appears to annihilate walker's defense he doesn't know the woman who alleges she was paid by walker to have an abortion. for reference, here is what walker said about this yesterday on fox news. >> according to "the daily beast," you know this woman. have you figured out who it is? >> not at all. that's what i hope everyone can see it's sort of like everyone is anonymous. >> we see. according to another bombshell piece of reporting, that woman happens to be the mother of one herschel walker's children. when the woman first told "the daily beast" her story, we agreed not to reveal certain details over her concerns for

safety and privacy. when walker categorically denied the story and said he didn't know who was making this allegation, the woman, a registered democrat, whose relationship with walker continued after the abortion, told "the daily beast" her chief concern with revealing her name was because she is the mother of one of walker's children. she wanted to protect her family's privacy as best she could while coming forward with the truth. walker has publically acknowledged that their child is his own and the woman proved she's the child's mother and provided credible evidence of a long-term relationship with herschel walker. nbc news has not independently confirmed this reporting. walker is once again denying some, all of the allegations, telling nbc there's, quote, no truth to it. in his denials, the woman tells

"the daily beasts" it's his hypocrisy that spurred her to come forward. she's the mother of one of his four kids. he did not accept responsibility for the kid we did have together, and now he is not accepting responsibility for the one that we did not have. that says so much about how he views the role of women in childbirth versus his own. now, he wants to take that choice away from other women and couples entirely, she said, quote, this was a decision i had to make twice about my future and a potential child's future, and i was able to make it both times. herschel walker was also able to have a say. the fact he now thinks it is okay to just take that away, she

says, quote, i just can't understand. it's where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. yamiche alcindor is here. she's in georgia. former democratic congresswoman and msnbc contributor donna edwards is back. and our friend rick wilson is here, former republican strategist, the co-founder of the lincoln project. yamiche, you are on the ground. tell me -- take me through what part of this story he is denying. he accepts the child she is talking about is his child. what is he denying that he had a say in both the pregnancy that they decided to terminate and -- what part of the story are we to believe he doesn't accept as truth? >> there's a lot going on with this story. it's not surprising you are a little confused by all of the facts here as so many other people i have been talking to are.

let's remember that -- i'm in georgia where herschel walker was here holding a campaign event. he is denying it all. he is denying it happened. he is denying he knows this woman. he is denying this abortion happened, that he had anything to do with this. he is saying this is all a lie, it's a distraction by democrats. he is saying -- i pressed on this. what about the fact this is your son, your family, and a mother of your children saying you are a liar, you can't be trusted? he told me that these people are being used by the left to hurt him. i should note that there are national republicans sticking with him. in the state of georgia, the lieutenant governor is voicing unease. even the staunchest republicans are rattled by the drip, drip, drip of information. the baggage that herschel walker is carrying that it is become unbearable. there's a little politics going on here. 1% or 2% of the vote makes all

the difference in a state that's so close because the senate race is so close and critical to republicans trying to win back control. it's herschel walker, defiant, saying everything that's happening, everything people are saying is completely false. >> yamiche, i usually agree with you on everything. this is not a drip. this is a gusher. i'm glad you mentioned the lieutenant governor, republican. everything that is being thrown up there is being knocked out of the water. it's the republicans in the state who share the horror at the revelations. let me play that sound for you. this is republican lieutenant governor jeff duncan. >> even the most staunch republicans i think are rattled at the continued flow of information. i think every republican knew there was baggage out there. but the weight of the baggage is starting to feel closer to unbearable at this point. some of this could have gotten cleaned up in the primary, if we

looked hard at somebody's leadership skills. herschel walker won the primary because he scored touchdowns back in the '80s and he was donald trump's friend. that's no longer a recipe to win. >> that's brutal. >> certainly. we should remind people that the lieutenant governor is not up for re-election. he is speaking more freely than other republicans who are up for re-election in the state. what we hear from democrats are -- the democrats i talked to on the ground is that this is embarrassing. that was the word they used. herschel walker doesn't have the character to serve in the u.s. senate. they thought that he didn't have the character back when he was first facing domestic abuse allegations, which christian walker has been talking about saying that herschel walker almost killed him and his mother. what you see here are democrats

saying that this was someone who should never have been in the position to run. i talked to a voter who said the only reason why he is here is because he supports donald trump. when you support donald trump, you can have any kind of morals. there's a real sense on the democratic side that this is more par for the core for a republican party that changed the way they deal with candidates who have scandals. is this going to impact the race? 1% or 2% makes the difference. when i talk to voters, they are in their camps. i talked to women who tell me even if herschel walker is lying today, if this happened, they are still sticking with herschel walker because he is an opponent of abortion and even in cases of rape or incest. republicans here say that he is on the right track, even if he made a mistake in their eyes. >> rick, when did we cross this -- into this matrix where someone who is -- by the traditional political standards morally unacceptable, maybe

standards that are quaint antiques now, and decide that a person that republican jeff duncan described as only winning, quote, because he scored a bunch of touchdowns back in the '80s and he is donald trump's friend, is now preaching a policy where no woman in america -- he supports a national ban on abortion. he is open to bans with no exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. he sat down allegedly with a partner and they made this choice to terminate a pregnancy. according to "the daily beast" reporting, this same partner with whom he had a years long relationship, they brought into child into the world, no woman in america would get to have those conversations or deliberations in herschel walker's america. >> it's true. what it tells you about the con temporary republican party is that the things that were what

we thought were defining characteristics of an acceptable candidate when we were in the republican party, things like moral character and personal responsibility and integrity and holding to what you believe in, those things are completely out of the picture now. those things are -- have been sub subsumed. they want to execute on the ideological checklists they have. they don't believe in anything. they will get there however they k. the shock and tragedy is really that there's people that herschel walker -- he has shown how badly he will destroy people in his life. the republicans were aware of this before this broke. mitch mcconnell and those people were trying to bump walker out. they had this opposition research back then.

they didn't let the world know but they let insiders know that his skeleton closet was like a graveyard convention. things like this and beyond. he is a destructive person. he is not a morally acceptable person in the realm of any kind of candidate. if the republicans had the shoe on the other foot, they would be losing their damn minds. >> it speaks to the hypocrisy of the evangelical movement itself. what are they about? >> again, they are about power. they are about achieving the things that they can't achieve in society or in legislation, they want the things they want purely through the power of the courts. they see the senate as that single vector to achieve that for themselves. look, they are very open about what they want next. they view that their great victory on roe is not enough. they want to move next to eliminating gay marriage, gay

adoption, restricting rights of privacy and agency for folks in the country to fit in with their religious view. they will take any vector to get there. i'm not a good enough biblical scholar to tell you, but i think there's warnings about using the wrong road to get to the right place. >> i am not a biblical scholar, by any measure. so i will leave it at that. donna edwards, the sign of rot in white independent women voters voting for donald trump and the numbers they did after he committed on tape to being enthusiastic about grabbing women in the -- because he is famous and they let you, he is describing enthusiasm for sexual assault, and think voted for him anyway. j.d. vance, who did an interview, not with me, not a mainstream journalist, where he articulates support for women staying in violent relationships

and marriages. that is better for the kids. the tragedy is that women will vote for him, women saw to it to vote for trump. what is the thing to wake people up from some sort of sleepwalking trance that says he gets me where i want to go on life or tax policy, and understand that the norms are held up by having people with some modicum of decency and morality and by living a life you will legislate impossible and illegal, you are not qualified to hold office, how do you make women voters understand that to be the case? >> i think this is been the great struggle, especially in this environment. once donald trump got that nomination in 2016 and then went

on to win the presidency, even in the face of the allegations that were coming from multiple sources over multiple kinds of behaviors, regarding women, not the least of which was the "access hollywood" videotape. but i think there is no longer a moral bar in the republican party that donald trump essentially opened the door to candidates like herschel walker, who believes that he can continue to just deny and deny right up until election day. the problem is that these issues with herschel walker are coming home to roost. here we are weeks from election day. it isn't just the voices of his son christian talking about domestic violence and holding a gun to his mother's head. it is these allegations of the hypocrisy of making a choice about an abortion when you are

not allowing other women to make those choices. there is no more moral bar within the republican party. we are just three election cycles away from a candidate like herschel walker never being able to even get through the vetting process to become a candidate. and here we are today. i don't know what to say to those women who clearly -- we ask all the time, why is a voter voting against their self-interest? i'm not sure what the answer to that is. at some point this morality and the hypocrisy has to come home to roost. it will come home to roost, unfortunately, for women if a candidate like herschel walker and j.d. vance and others are elected and strip away all of their rights. >> yamiche, you are on the ground. i made this point all week long.

the georgia republican party is an interesting story in and of itself. raffensperger survived maga-like candidates. jeff duncan is not running, but he is more in the republican party in georgia aligned with the raffensperger and kemp wing, not the herschel walker wing. how is that tension within the georgia republican party playing out over this story? is there some i told you so? what's it look like? >> it's an incredibly interesting situation here in georgia politically. you have a state like this, which was deeply red, that went blue in the presidential for joe biden. a lot of people split their ticket here. take into consideration the 2020 race, joe biden got less votes statistically than warnock. there are people who voted for warnock but not joe biden. i talked to voters who said they are planning to split their ticket. this herschel walker news is

making them think, i don't want to go for this guy but i might go for brian kemp or for stacey abrams and also for herschel walker, that's what you get in georgia. that's why you have people looking at herschel walker and saying, why is this the best candidate that republicans could put forward? you heard mitch mcconnell say candidate quality is really important to him. should be important to republicans. that's a nod to what happened this year, which was a number of trump-backed candidates, they won their primaries, able to win, a republican in pennsylvania, here in georgia, in ohio, other places. then the question is, can they pull it through in the general when you have more people who are looking at the candidates and saying, maybe this isn't the person i want to back. especially when you think about the fact that with donald trmp, you had evangelical christians focused on abortion. none of that had success in their eyes. do i really have to vote for this person, can i get away with voting for warnock who is not saying anything about this,

staying out of the fray and hoping he can get votes from people who are walking away from herschel walker. >> i wanted to ask you about the warnock campaign. they have had an incredibly successful fund-raising stretch. he has been an incredibly productive senator, working on issues important to his state. how are they navigating what is here in the water in these final weeks of the race? >> it's a great question. we have sahil kapur in savannah, at a warnock event. he is out there having campaign events. my understanding, warnock isn't wanting to talk about this. you go do that, have this play out, let this drip, drip, drip continue. i'm going to talk about the economy. i'm going to talk about human rights and abortion rights, human rights. he is focused on issues that democrats are focused on.

warnock is out raising herschel walker. nbc news learned that in the last few days here, herschel walker raised $500,000 after this claim. this claim might actually be helping him when it comes to fund-raising. herschel walker is still in a tight race. there's some people who say this shouldn't be tight. herschel walker is someone who didn't have political experience and he had all this baggage. you have senator warnock who is preaching at dr. martin luther king's former church. the race is still tight. that shows you this is a seat up for grabs. >> rick, i think we live in the time when a republican scandal is an oxymoron. we had this conversation yesterday. roy moore, accused sexual predator of young girls, and the subject of much investigative journalism at the time about this time in his general election campaign, might be

acceptable to today's gop. what do we do about that? >> during that race with doug jones and roy moore, we were doing independent stuff and we were able to split off republican women in particular from him just because of the disgusting, unacceptable nature of what he was and did. i don't know that that number is not out there still. it takes a lot more shock and awe now, because there are still plenty of republicans who are going to say, well, if it's not walker who is imperfect, i'm going to have pick the socialist cannibal whatever. they make up this catalog of imaginary demons in their head about what the democrats are. they use it justify a lot of their choices. look, herschel walker is right now -- fox news is running a full-time defense of herschel walker. i don't think it's helping. as you pointed out at the top of the show, these hits keep coming. this is not over yet.

his continued denials will extend the story. eventually, you run out of time. this campaign, you never get a day back in a campaign. you can do other things, but you will never get another day added to the calendar. i think walker is in deep trouble. i think republicans are showing themselves to be -- they are not ashamed of it because they are past shame. the hypocrisy and the lust for power on the side of the gop that they are showing with this, with making these excuses, particularly guys like erick erickson and the evangelical community, i think it will hurt them. it continues to corrode demographics inside the party, a little here, a little there. >> donna, i think the money -- he showed up on hannity after the ground broke. you gotta believe the votes were locked up. i think the fund-raising is a sign of the sickness. calls are coming from within the

republican house, his son is a conservative activist, he told the story of domestic violence on film, on camera. the woman telling the story about the abortion -- alleged abortion she and herschel walker decided together to have for their child, is the mother of another child, what do you make of how voters might sift through all of that? >> i think rick is right. these elections are going to be decided by 1% or 2%. i think for democrats, the challenge is to try to persuade that very, very narrow group of maybe republican women that this is unacceptable. i would note that despite mitch mcconnell having said that they have a -- things are dependent on the quality and caliber of the candidate, it didn't stop mitch mcconnell from going to bat for herschel walker. none of this has stopped the republican committee from going

to bat for herschel walker. so they are willing in a sheer grab for power to put aside all of these allegations, including what might come, because they want to win the senate. i think at the end of the day, it's that small 1% or 2% who may not tell pollsters, but this is a story that is far too much for them and they will hold their noses and go in and vote for senator warnock. >> here is hoping. yamiche, thank you. donna edwards and rick wilson, thank you for starting us off. a programming note. stacey abrams will be our guest in the next hour. she's running for governor in georgia. our first chance to talk to her about this scandal in her state on the republican side. when we come back, the trial against five members of the oath keepers accused of plotting to attack the capitol got very

interesting today. the former member of the right wing militia group testifying about connects between the leader and the u.s. secret service. the ex-president fighting tooth and nail to slow the investigation or stop into the documents he took and lied about keeping from the white house. those challenges now moving through multiple avenues of the judicial system. we will try to untangle where that stands as more deadlines loom. later, we knew it was bad, but not like this. new analysis shows more than half of republicans in this year's midterm elections are election deniers. people who deny the results of the 2020 presidential election. the big lie seeping through the mainstream gop. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. quick break. don't go anywhere. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. nucala is not for sudden breathing problems.

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we are learning incredible new details about the possible coordination between members of the far right oath keepers militia group and the u.s. secret service in the months leading up to the january 6 insurrection at the u.s. capitol. john zimmerman, a former member, testified for the prosecution today and said that the group's leader was in contact with a secret service agent as early as september 2020. he testified that he overheard a phone call between stewart rhodes and someone rhodes claimed was an agent before a trump rally in north carolina discussing what parameters oath keepers could operate under at the rally. this new revelation is another clue in the mystery surrounding both the u.s. secret service and

the ex-president's connection with militia groups in the lead-up to the attack on the capitol. glen kerschner is here with us. with us at the table, mike schmid and the former director of the cia john brennan is here. he is an msnbc senior national security analyst. glen, take us inside the courtroom. >> today was a table setting day. the prosecution presented three former oath keepers. there was a common theme. all three of the individuals were members of the oath keepers organization for a relatively short period of time in the run-up to the presidential election and the aftermath, and they were disturbed by what they saw, particularly from stewart

rhodes, that they left the organization. if i can tick through the witnesses quickly. >> please. >> excuse me for wearing the glasses and looking at my notes from the courtroom. the first witness was a gentleman named john zimmerman. there was an eyebrow raising moment when we heard him tell the jury about a trump rally in north carolina in september and some of the oath keepers were there and zimmerman said, i was listening to a phone call. i couldn't hear who was on the other end of the call. stewart rhodes was talking to something and rhodes said it was a secret service agent and zimmerman, who is retired military, said based on the context of what i was hearing, it sounded like he was talking to a secret service agent. we don't have much more evidence about that at this point. perhaps we will hear more as the trial progresses. the other main takeaway from zimmerman's testimony, which was atmospherically really bad for the oath keepers, was he said that they attended the million

maga march in mid november of 2020. stewart rhodes said, listen there are probably going to be antifa members, and we know his words, they like to prey upon the weak. what i think we should do is dress up like we are vulnerable. make ourselves look old, carry canes. if they try to attack us, we will, quote, give them a good beat down. this so disgusted john zimmerman that he walked away from the organization. that was a common theme from the three witnesses that the prosecution presented today. they were so disturbed. one actually said, it sounded like based on stewart rhodes' rhetoric they were preparing to go to war against the united states. this was really damaging testimony. it was sort of table setting for the evidence to come. >> glen, the piece that ties trump to this, one of the pieces is this call, this alleged

effort by stewart rhodes to get ahold of donald trump on january 6. is the evidence being introduced by mr. zimmerman of a contact back around a north carolina rally with the secret service connective to that? is it unrelated? >> maybe. there was only one fleeting reference thus far suggesting that stewart rhodes claimed he had some sort of contact, that he could exploit to get to donald trump. here is the thing. i think it's a double-edged sword for the prosecutors to present too much evidence about that. this trial is not about donald trump or about the only keepers' connections to donald trump. the more they wade into that evidentiary territory, i think they are perhaps creating more challenges than they are remedying with respect to the five defendants on trial. >> this can be proven by what? proving they had a plan to overturn the government and

coming up short, doesn't mean you are innocent? >> absolutely. conspiracy is simply an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime. taking one step toward the commission of the crime. the overt act. once you do that, you agree and somebody, one conspirator, takes that overt act, crime of conspiracy is complete. we usually shorthand it as a conspiracy to overthrow the government. that does violate the statute. the prosecutors have highlighted it. if you are involved in a conspiracy to prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of the united states, you have violated the statute. that's precisely what these oath keepers were trying to do. they were trying to prevent, hinder or delay the certification of joe biden's win in violation of the electoral count act. >> you described today's mission

as table setting. tell me how zimmerman's testimony about a call to the u.s. secret service -- what is that setting the table for? >> you know, that's a great question. it's a bit of an outlier. it's not directly relevant to the charges that have been indicted against these five defendants. listen, the prosecutors thought it was in their tactical interest to perhaps at least whet the appetite of the jurors that, listen, there was somebody on the inside. i really think we have to wait to see if they continue down that evidentiary path during the trial. >> mary, doj is really good at a lot of things, i'm sure they will do this professionally and expertly. but you don't get a lot of reps in on charging conspiracy. what is your sense of what went into planning for this trial?

>> in deciding to bring that charge, to seek that charge from the grand jury, i think what the department did is what it is supposed to do in every case. it's supposed to seek indictment on the most readily provable charges that fit the crime and for which they have evidence to prove every element of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt. it really fits what happened here. a conspiracy to hinder or delay the execution of u.s. laws. those laws being the constitution and the electoral count act that required the meeting of both houses of congress on january 6, 2021 and the counting of the electoral college votes. that's what there was an effort to delay and in fact that was a successful effort. the effort was -- the counting was delayed by a number of hours. conspiracy can be illegal just to agree do it, even if you don't fulfill it. here, they did ultimately attack the u.s. capitol and they did

ultimately delay. i think the government thought, this is the crime that fits. we have the evidence to prove it. if they prove up the evidence that was in the indictment, that will be sufficient to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt. >> which is stunning. it is an important reminder that they did succeed. they did delay it for many hours. frankly, but for mike pence refusing to leave, the delay might have been longer. where the evidence leads on the call to the secret service is secondary to the perception problem that the secret service has right now. they are right up in the weeds with donald trump's efforts to participate in the violence. now they are right up in the weeds on day one of this trial. is the secret service aware of or concerned about their reputation? >> this disclosure today about the secret service reminded me that there is still -- we have learned so much about january 6.

i think some members of the media and myself included before the hearings said, what do we really learn from these hearing hearings? we learned a lot. today, you realize that out of everything that we have learned, the secret service part of the story is one that we still haven't heard. there was the cassidy hutchinson testimony that walked up to the line of it and brought the secret service into it. you have the committee saying that it was going to interview some of the people in the secret service and it was unclear where that really headed, what that meant about cassidy hutchinson's testimony. then today, you have this piece of information which i think about being in the court, it's not clear what it means. what does it mean if someone thought that someone else was on the phone with the secret

service? if we know anything about the justice department and how these trials function, you can't just at a trial just throw out a piece of information. the prosecutors know the answers to the questions before it happens. >> right. it's not cable news. they thought it through. to that point, director brennan, we're so accustom to sludge ending up on once revered institutions that when first heard this i was like, of course, the oath keepers called the secret service. wait a minute. i traveled for five years and benefitted by being part of the people that had to travel with the president. it was a once universally heralded institution. they are now introduce as a player in this trial. >> these institutions are made up of people. we have seen over the years there are individuals who go bad. if there was a secret service agent who was in contact with an oath keeper on that day, he was doing it in a very unauthorized,

unethical and maybe illegal manner in terms of dealing with individuals who are engaged in this trial. as you well know, the secret service is next to the president all the time. they are in the middle of this. unfortunately, we have had a number of episodes over the past couple of years, where the secret service has not acquitted itself with great glory, because of individuals who have gone astray. i have great confidence the majority of the secret service members really are carrying out their duties on a day-to-day basis with the utmost professionalism and ethics. >> we are so lucky that you are in there and took time to come out and put on your glasses and read your notes. keep it up. up next, the justice department with a back and forth with the master could spell bad news for the trump legal team to slow down the mar-a-lago document investigation. we will tell you about that coming up. don't go anywhere.

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another district judge as special master, then an appeals court rejected that move, two of the three judges were trump appointees. now trump is dragging the u.s. supreme court into the fray in these efforts to overrule them. it's that latest escalation by the ex-president's legal team asking justice clarence thomas, no less, to restore the special master's authority over 100 classified documents and halt doj's access to them. doj has until tuesday to challenge it. yesterday, more bad news for trump's delay strategy. the appeals court agreed, quote, with no extensions allowed to fast track its consideration of doj's request to shut down the special master's review of all 11,000 documents entirely. we are back with mary, mike and john. what does this mean? how much of this will we see? how much of this is public facing, including filings or other moves? >> the fiings are public.

it's a very interesting strategy here to go -- not surprising. trump likes to go to the supreme court. he is trying to take advantage of the shadow document, where emergency motions are filed. it's not the normal petition for the court to accept a case and have full briefing over the course of months and argument. it's an emergency motion which often times results in a very short order without a lot of reasoning behind it by the supreme court. he has got that going on. what's really interesting is the timing on that is really going to coincide exactly with the new timing on the expedited appeal in the 11th circuit. what trump is trying to do is get the supreme court to actually vacate or erase, nullify the stay that the 11th circuit issued against judge cannon's order. that meant that judge cannon's order was not valid with respect to the classified documents that

the government was able to use them in its criminal investigation and did not have to provide those to the special master. the government though, remember, had killappealed the entire rul. that's what the 11th circuit has expedited appeal of the merits of that entire ruling at the same time that trump is up in the supreme court trying to quash what the 11th circuit has done. there's a lot going on here. there's a lot to unpack. the timing could be such that the 11th circuit rules on the merits of the special master before and the delay of other things before the special master even finishes his work. >> director brennan, is it your sense that the national security imperative of getting into the classified documents is paralyzed by all of this?

>> yes. i want them to pursue the investigation from an accountability standpoint, the criminal investigation. i am most concerned about the inability of the government, the fbi and intelligence community, to do the investigation to find out what was the actual providence of those documents when they went to mar-a-lago, moved around, and to review them to make appropriate decisions as far as what actions they might have to take in order to protect either sensitive technical collection systems or human sources or other programs. while trump's lawyers and trump put this into the court system, this delay and delay is just preventing that investigative effort from moving forward, which i hope is going to give us some sense about whether there was compromise here. there are large national security stakes involved. >> how unusual is it for the government to be unable to do an

assessment of damage? is that something you had heard of before? >> i have never heard of a president or anybody claiming that they owned the classified documents. that is just absurd on its face. what the intelligence community needs is access to those documents in order to do the risk assessment as far as how likely was it that they were compromised, and if they were what actions need to be taken. this is unprecedented on so many levels, because the intelligence community, the fbi really once they have documents, i have never heard of a case they have been prevented -- the government has been prevented from looking at their own documents, classified documents, irrespective what trump claims he might have declassified. these are government documents that deal with sensitive national security programs. it's really outrageous that trump and his team are doing this. it delays that review that is so necessary. >> mary, we get down into the weeds on this story.

i'm reminded that what we are talking about is an inside threat. an ex-american commander in chief preventing an assessment of u.s. national security. how do we sort of future-proof the presidency from someone like donald trump? >> i think that will be the subject of probably a lot of legislative hearings and a lot of legal analysis once we get through this. are there other things to be done legislatively to tighten things up with respect to this? i will say though that -- as john brennan said, nothing like this happened before. it's really pretty incredible and mind boggling that this would be happening at this point in time. a president essentially claiming classified records could be personal records and that the government shouldn't be able to use them in its investigation. right now, we keep talking about trump's thwarting it. but right now the 11th circuit's stay is in effect, which means

the classified information right now, the classified documents can be used by the government in its ongoing criminal and national security assessment. if the supreme court reverses that, we will be back in a situation where the government can't move forward. the government right now though can't use any of the other 11,000 unclassified documents in that investigation. those are in a different category. that's a big delay. that's why we are seeing an expedition of the appeal. if i could just add one other thing that i think is really remarkable here. >> please. >> the moving goalposts. when they first went to judge cannon, they talked about privilege. executive privilege, attorney/client privilege. that's why the special master needed to review the documents. as that has evolved and as we have had the special master do what it has done and the 11th circuit what it has done, they now changed that.

they are saying to the supreme court that the special master -- i'm looking over at another screen reading it -- needs to determine whether documents bearing classification markings are classified. that's a different thing from what they said they needed a special master for. that is completely different. that is nothing that a special master has any ability to assess. that is the national security community, intelligence community that classified documents and remember as well that when the special master judge dearie asked trump's team to tell them if they have -- if they were asserting that trump declassified any documents, they denied it so this is real gamesmanship right now. >> what do we make of the fact, director brennon, that there is classified material unaccounted for. do we even know that all of it has been retrieved? >> well, i think it is become

clear that the security practices in the white house were quite lax during the trump administration. and so the accounting, the record keeping and other types of things and so i think the government doesn't know quite frankly what documents might still be missing because the usual records that they might have kept would have given them insight into that. but given that didn't happen on the trump white house, i think they're just hoping that they have the bulk of them, all of them or whatever. but who knows what else might be out there, which i think is quite unnerving for national security professionals. >> there is one person who knows a whole lot of trump lawyers and obstruction investigations. we'll ask about that on the other side of a break. don't go anywhere. go anywhere.

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gold. your strategic advantage. (music) visit goldhub.com. we're back with our panel. mike, we are learned this week of another trump lawyer who refused to lie on behalf of trup. it is a pattern of obstruction since the earlier days. how closely are you watching the obstruction investigation. >> well, in terms of the lawyers as witnesses, we sometime just a few weeks ago were writing about this. and we were debating how to tell the story. and we said to ourselves that there have been something circulated back and forth in different times that maga stood for making attorneys get attorneys. and we decided to lead with it. and while obviously it is a little tongue and cheek for a

very serious story, it truly articulated the situation that these lawyers find themselves in. they become tools of donald trump and in the process develop their own legal exposure and need lawyers themselves. >> so when they say no to him, the story that came out this week is about alex cannon, a trump lawyer who refused to lie on behalf of donald trump. it is pretty binary. now he's another witness against him and seemingly proof that he knew it was illegal. >> but that shows what the -- we're talking about legal exposure. but the exposure that you have working for donald trump. because even if you are someone who said no, like don mcgahn famously said no, you're still going to end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills even if you don't do what he wants. >> must be fun. thank you all so much for being here with us.

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if you care about democracy, and you care about the survival of our republic, then you need to understand we all have to understand that we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections. elections are the foundation of our republic. and peaceful transfers of power

are the foundation of our republic. and we must have elected officials in both parties who understand and honor that duty and that responsibility. so, what happens here in arizona is not just important for arizona, but it is important for the nation and for the future functioning of our constitutional republic. >> hi, again, it is 5:00 in the new york. you heard liz cheney at this very moment in american history, the story of our country, the survival of our republic as we know it hangs in the balance. 32 days. think about that. 32 days is all that separates us from in an enormously consequential midterm election result that could shift the balance of power in washington and in state houses all across our country. the collective threat by now is quite obvious to all of us. a basketball of trump worshiping election deniers who have used

lies about the 2020 presidential election to earn republican nominations for our highest offices. many of the positions will hold sway over the levers of power in our country in future elections. meaning, republican wins could make this november 8th a point of no return. the hard truth is this. ready? most of these people are going to win. it is not our guesswork. it is a result of a washington post analysis. new today illustrating the sheer scale of the jeopardy we face. quote, a majority of republican nominees on the ballot this november for the house senate and key statewide offices, 299 in all have denied or questioning the outcome of the last presidential election. candidates who have challenged or refused to accept joe biden's victory are running in every region of the country in nearly every state. republican voters in four states nominated election deniers in

all federal and state wide races post examined. heavily democrat areas are expected to lose. most of the republicans are likely to win. of the nearly 300 on the ballot, 174 are running for safely republican seats and another 51 will appear on the ballot in tightly contested races. perhaps nowhere is this potential peril more pronounced than in arizona where we spent so much time covering yesterday. among the nine republican nominees, all but one are election deniers and the three offices, administrative and -- overseeing elections and the governor and the secretary of state and the attorney general. they have questioned president joe biden's win in 2020. it brings us back to where we started. liz cheney walking the walk, making good on a promise she made to do everything that she can to make sure that kari lake

is not elected governor. here is more of what she had to say. >> i never imagined that i would find myself spending so much time with democrats. and i'm sure they are surprised to be spending so much time with me also. my first vote i ever cast, i was 18 years old and i voted for ronald reagan. so for almost 40 years now, i've been voting republican. i don't know that i have ever voted for a democrat. but if i lived in arizona, now i absolutely would. >> so we begin with the hour with our favorite reports and freds, editor of "the washington post," griff witty is here. and also joining us, kimberly atkins, senior opinion writer for the "boston globe" and an msnbc contributor and we're always glad when she's here and with us at the table, frank figliuzzi director for counterintelligence and now a

national security analyst. we're so glad you're back after scaring us earlier in the week. so they said de-radicalization has to start with someone with a toe hold amid the radicalized. liz cheney won't have it for long but she might still have it but what did you make that you can't vote for republicans if you care for the republic. >> the big kudos to liz cheney for doing the courageous thing that she's zog is whether it will resonate with the people it needs to resonate with. we talk about election denners. there is a polling that show they will never change thur mind. so we can't reach them with fact. but liz klainy may be the factor. they're riding the fence. something was wrong from 2020 and they don't know the accuracy, that is where she could make the difference and to the extent that independent or moderates are looking at liz cheney and saying if she's going

to elect someone who doesn't deny elections, and even more importantly she's raising the issue of, look, it is not just the election that you're worried about, if you say i want somebody in office who doesn't accept election results, be careful because it is going to happen in a way next time that you don't like. i think she could influence that group of people in the middle. >> this is the sad truth. de-radicalization may be out of our reach. but electoral influence in liz cheney's reach. and what i liked about this interview is the humility she showed about spending a lot of time with democrats and democrats spending a lot of time with her. and that for both sides, it is new. she didn't say uneasy for everyone. but there may be something in her message to this group of voters frank is talking about that may keep some of the people out of office. >> i believe so.

look, i don't think in general that for a lot of these voters that liz cheney being in an ad for example might be effective. but i do think that this message and this interview is effective for the reasons that frank pointed out. but also because it is focusing on a particular issue. she's not saying that republicans can never be redeemed. she is not smearing republicans. she's focusing on an issue and saying this is important. and in this situation only, i've never voted for a democrat. but if it came down to someone who was denying that the election was real, someone saying that fraud exists that doesn't, someone pushing views that are counter to the very foundation of democracy, given that choice in this particular election, i would make that choice. i'm still a republican. but that is a choice that i would make. and i think by putting that fine point on it, it is a very effective message.

>> griff, your story today scared us more than frank usually does which is a lot. the reporting about the implications that if republicans take control of the house, as many political forecasters predict is possible, election deniers would hold sway over the next speaker who could provide over the house in a future contested election. the sheer number of election deniers running in safe republican seats was a fact previously unclear to me. take us through the reporting. >> well, this is extraordinary reporting that amy gardner was one of our main reporters looking at voting and elections in the country has been working on for more than a year. taking meticulous care to look at every single candidate in this country who is running for federal office, for the house of the senate or key statewide offices with over sight of elections. like governor and lieutenant governor, secretary of state,

attorney general. and what she found after we've had primaries across the country this year, it is just extraordinary breadth in terms of the number of election deniers who have been made the gop nominees and who will be on the ballot in november. this is not a regional thing. this is not just in certain states. this is not just for certain offices. it is right up and down the ballot in just about every single state. it is a 299 candidates for state and federal office who are going to be on the gop ticket this fall who have said that they're not willing to accept the results of the 2020 election. >> griff, what does it por tend for election night. >> well, we also did a story a week ago where she asked every single senate or gubernatorial candidate in a major competitive race in this country what they have the results of the election and all of the democrats that we questioned said that they would

in fact accept the results. on the republican side it was a much more mixed picture. we had some republicans who said, yes they would accept the results and we had a dozen republicans who either declined to answer the question, or gave very, very vague answers that did not commit themselves one way or the other. and so i think that we've seen all of these candidates who have refused to accept the 2020 results. some of them have preemptively cast doubt on the election this year. they said they're concerned there could be fraud and they've laid the groundwork for potentially refusing to concede their own elections should they lose. >> frank, the contamination of the conspiracy theory about fraudulent elections is staggering. i don't know that there is another lie that has seeped into a movement. i mean it was two years ago, it was in october, ahead of the presidential election, that i think trump first started refusing to commit to conceding

if he lost. i don't remember if he was asked in a debate or a news interview. where he refused to -- i think it is in a debate with joe biden. he was the only one though. now you have 300. this is incredible. i mean, liz cheney's message is great. it might be two years too late. >> yeah. so clearly this label election denier has become the badge you have to affix to your chest if you're going to move forward as a gop candidate. the ironic thing is that they're duping the people who are going to vote for them. don't think for a second that these people running for office at high level are so dumb that they've ignored all of the facts an the court cases and the appeals of the election in 2020 and they're true believers in this. no, they need this to get you to vote for them. that is all they care about. with regard to the core of the recent polling that shows the people who label themselves quote strong republicans, a

disturbingly high percentage say they don't believe the election was valid. i hate to say this, but with regards to those people, we won't ever get the facts into their head. they will not accept that. so you say how do you counter that? consequences, we're seeing consequences in the form of what 900 convictions or arrests now for january 6 and today breaking news, a proud boy has pled guilty to seditious conspiracy. so consequences have constrain those people. and also consequences at a very high level where they see the leaders who have radicalized them have to pay the price. we haven't seen that yet. >> i think those are the people that committed criminal acts. because they believe this lie. but i think when you talk about how many people believe the lie, to frank's point, they're unreachable and, two, they have the pool of potential future criminals who could potentially in this ideology they believe in

carry out future acts. and here is liz cheney diagnosing where this comes from. his name is tucker. >> the republican party is the party of reagan, party that essentially won the cold war. and you look now at what i think is really a growing putin wing of the republican party. and you see news outlets like fox news running propaganda. you watch it not just on tucker carlson's show, although he is the biggest propaganda for putin on that network. but you see it on many of their shows and you have to ask yourself, you know, whose side is fox on in this battle. >> again, i wish we asked ourselves these questions years ago. but the person who benefits by 40% of the country not believing facts, not believing that election fraud cases go to

trials to judges that were appointed by donald trump because there wasn't any evidence of said fraud. running propaganda is pretty much all they do. >> that is true. and history teaches us, not only that this type of propaganda, this type of message to disbelieve democracy, the levers of democracy, is exactly how authoritarianism begins. it is how it takes hold and how it thrives and that is happening right now in the united states. but the thing that is particularly concerning, is this misinformation, this lie, this anti-democratic crusade that is being told to voters, to americans. it will take a generation to fully dispel. these candidates will win or lose but they will ultimately move on. hopefully democracy will survive. that remains to be seen. but, just the belief in

americans that there is fraud, this lie that is taken hold in just about every state, i think probably every state to some extent in this country will take so long to dispel, so long to get people to disbelief that even if none of these candidates win, these 299 candidates win, the damage is already done and it will be ongoing. >> griff, i want to read the post editorial about this great reporting. the post count does not even capture the mischief that could take place at the local level. there has been an skedous of those operatives filling the void and election officials are under pressure from harassment campaigns and including coordinated records requests that waste officials time and resources. several states have passed laws empowering partisan poll watchers forcing election administrators to prepare for more confrontations at polling

sites. then, there are rogue county clerks and other local officials who could do considerable damage to democracy that often fly under the radar. i read this and i thought of the searing testimony from shay moss and ruby freeman and i wonder if the reporting and this analysis on the editorial page leads you to any sort of prediction about what we should be braced for on a wide scale on election day. >> well i think we know from our reporting that election officials are very concerned that they are concerned that this virus of election denialism, of people not trusting the process, not trusting the election workers who are impartial and there to just ensure that there is a free and fair election in this country. the fact that a large percentage of americans don't trust that free and fair elections are possible. they don't trust that these workers are there to fairly

administer an election. that is a very disconcerting sign for the future of democracy. and you have election officials who are trying to be proactive, and who are trying to go out there and shoot down misinformation, you have journalists who are doing very much the same thing. but you see misinformation proliferate and you see this lie that somehow american elections are hopeless corrupted spreading and you see it in the mouths of politicians. and the fact that you have hundreds, hundreds of candidates running for the same federal office who are repeating these falsehoods, these inaccurate statements that somehow there was fraud that determined the 2020 election really bodes poorly for not only this election, but for the 2024 election and for future elections down the line. >> so as democracy burns, how do you protect the men and women

who do the thankless job of serving as our election workers? >> yeah. they become the critical cogs in this wheel. because it is both the beauty of our american system and the most confounding part of it with regard to elections that we don't have national control of the election. and we see not to want it and there is many reasons for that. but that means we're -- the weakest link in the chain could take us down. so that precinct in wisconsin or michigan or arizona, that bad worker, that threatened worker who walks off the job because of the strategy of violent threats again them, that could take us down. and so law enforcement nationally and federally needs to step up and rise to this occasion. and i'm not yet seeing that happening. i'm particularly concerned at county sheriff level, where we have an election elected position and they cater to their base and if they're base doesn't

believe in elections, we have sheriffs who say i'm looking the other way whether that machine is unplugged and in the voting precinct. or i'm part of the problem. or my deputies are going to be present to ensure that nothing irregular takes place. so i keep looking at we're very close now to november i keep looking for for the federal government and dhs to particularly aid the state and local partners and get them geared up for this. >> when we talk about potentially protracted, even talked even here about being prepared for it not to end that night. to have a couple of days for all of the results to be clear, if they're closed to be recounted. what does that look like from a security standpoint where there is counting going on late into the night and time for crowds to gather. how do you protect against those risks? >> the time to prepare is now. even as a budget item, do you have the overtime in place to pay for deputies around the clock in maricopa county,

because they've been there and done this before where things got very shaky at the voting centers. we need to replicate that around the country. but someone has to show the leadership here and that comes out of washington. and it is not undue interference for fbi and doj to say we're placing people that will help you deal with the intelligence, assess the threat and risk in your county and state, and make suggestions and guidance. we need that. doj should take that leadership. >> let me ask you about the militia groups and i want to get you on the record on this proud boy pleading guilty in the other seditious conspiracy trial brought by doj. but the militia groups were loud and proud ahead. election. that if trump doesn't win, we're taking to the streets. alex wagner had some great reporting. they were out and around and out and proud and loud advocates of the insurrection. many of them now face criminal

consequences. but out in the country, absent any sort of effort to tell them to stand down, the opposite of what trump did, what should we be braced for from them. >> so there is good news and bad news in this regard. a plea to seditious conspiracy, a right-hand man to enreekay theriot, and in the chat rooms you see people saying i don't want to go that route. even after january 6, i'm not getting arrested. but the counter strategy for them is let's go local. let's go with the school boards and the election officials. right. and we've seen that happening. so, again, this comes down to sharing intelligence with state and local officials and getting them to act. the problem of course is we know that law enforcement has its own issues with extremism and over 300 police officers have been on membership lists for the oath

keepers. 20 police officers have been arrested in connection with january 6. so this is a real dilemma with regard to the federal role, the sharing of intel and preparing for what will happen in november and beyond. >> kim, the court said yesterday that we start -- we start in the middle. that we've got election denialism and the threats of violence. but if you back up, it is about who they want to vote and whose votes they want to count. after trump lost, i think there were 500 voter suppression bills that raced through 48 state houses, a lot of them became law. it is now already harder to vote and you have this toxic mix of intimidation and election zenniers. what are you watching for in the next 32 days? >> well, all of the above including the fact that the voting rights act is continuously being eroded by this supreme court. and the point that you made at the top is right. it is about who is voting. that is clear in 2020 when the

places like around atlanta and detroit and philadelphia were the places that being attacked. that is certainly true with the swiftness with which these laws were passed making it more difficult for people disproportionately hard for people who are poorer and black and brown, who tend to vote democratic to vote. it is not a secret the way that they're doing it. and that is precisely the people who are most likely to get out and be motivated given what is going on. this is again a part of not just that racial divide in america, that has been a part of our 400-year history, but it is a part of the playbook of authoritarianism. you try to suppress the voices of those who are most likely to oppose you in order to hold on to power. there are so many things about this that history tells us how alarming it is. >> griff, we'll continue to call

on you. congratulations on the incredible reporting in the post today on this. kimberly, it is a pleasure to see you and hear from you and frank figliuzzi, thank you for scaring us and informing us on this very important story. when we come back, one of the national leaders in the efforts to zpand the right to vote and push back against all of this, stacy abrams will be our guest to discuss her own race for governor in georgia. her advice on how to defeat election deniers and what she makes for the silence from republicans over the herschel walker scandal. and an outpour of aid to the ukrainian people to help them prepare for the winter ahead. our friend and colleague cal perry is back in kyiv with new reporting on that front and igor will be our guest as ukraine's stunning grains on the battlefield have prompted some of vladimir putin's battlefield successes and the dangers that still lie ahead for them.

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[ laughter ]

we're sitting here 30 days out from a midterm election where our basic reproductive freedoms are on the line. where families like mine that depend on marriage equality won't fit in the maga view of america. i'm looking forward at holding this majority and that is the larger moral impair so the people who would have set aside the election, 139 of them were already in congress on january 6. and they voted to set aside the election. 75% of the republican caucus right now supports a nationwide

ban on reproductive freedom, abortion, and that is the moral imperative to keep those people out of power. >> that is the head of the democratic congressional campaign committee and for the stakes with this year's midterm elections just over one month away. our next guest has dedicated her life to fighting voter suppression and getting more people out to the polls. joining us now is stacey abrams, and the founder of the voting initiative fair fight. thank you for being with us today. >> thank you for having me. >> i have to first get your personal reaction, i'm sure for you it is not surprising, for us we're all kind of picking our jaws up off the table, but herschel walker's scandal not just of his conduct and lying about it, but of being someone whose hypocrisy has been laid bear before the georgia electorate that he would based

on reportings in the daily beast talk to a woman he's in a relationship with and pay for an abortion and send her a get well card and advocating a national ban. >> in georgia, hypocrisy is contagious. brian kemp said it is nos his place to be involved in the perm lives of others but yet he's signed into law that denies women a right to choose after six weeks but he has nothing to say about his running mate who is more than willing or according to reports what done exactly what he's prohibits women to be able to cluz to do to protect her lives and and their families. the hypocrisy between brian kemp and herschel walker is a very strong sign of the kind of leadership that walker would provide if he were elected and that kemp has failed to provide to the state of georgia. it is a rule for him and different rules for the rest of

georgia. >> and how is that playing? are you hearing, is the herschel walker scandal and the refuse of any republicans to withdraw support for his candidacy, is that hurting republicans? >> we don't know yet. but we are going to absolutely make the case. because the reality is their hypocrisy is not limited to abortion. but it is draconian. under the law in georgia, women are being told they can't have access to basic medical care because the doctors and nurses are afraid that they will be subject to ten years in prison. but we also know that the very party that is said that women cannot make their own choices, they're being absolutely silent, in fact rallying around smurn who has done exactly what they've denied right to other women to do. and what is more disturbing to me is that brian kemp likes to hold himself out as a moralist, but he is someone who is an on

or opportunityist. he prefused to stand on his convictions and using his political power to strip women of their freedoms, to attack the lgbtq community, engage in voter suppression, if you are not like him, he is not for you. >> stacy, liz cheney is fresh to the fight, if that is a good word to use. to protect and preserve democracy for voting for donald trump in 2020. she saw enough after january 6. she was in arizona making the case that you could not vote for republicans if you care about democracy. would that be helpful in your state? >> it would be. unfortunately, and you've actually been thoughtful about this, but writ large brian kemp has been lie onnized for not committing treason. we have yet to investigate what does it mean to be lionized for 246 years every other governor managed to not commit treason

and every secretary of state managed not to commit treason but he's the architect of voter suppression law that is harming georgians this year. 64,000 people have had their right to vote challenged including white supremacist groups who used the brian kemp law to challenge the right to vote for black and brown voters across the state of georgia and he keeps silent. he signed this law proud of this claiming that he did so because it was necessary when he admitted during his primary that he only did it because he was frustrated by the results of the election. he is a voter suppresser architect and he is continued to tack the right -- attack the right to vote in the state of georgia. attacked our freedom to vote and our freedom to control our bodies and to be here who and willing to do that to win an election and hopefully that liz cheney and others will stand up and say it and look at people would silently let it happen and

the very same behavior, they just haven't sought the spotlight for it. >> it is interesting, the voter suppression law passed in georgia was the first one, i believe, that emanate from the big lie. i think georgia was the first place that it was passed and signed into law. it was so radioactive that major league baseball moves the game out of your state. >> yes. >> but then everyone fell sile ent and other states have passed election laws on the lie, and it has infected the republican party and running as election deniers. what could be done in your view to dispel or deradicalize or bring back to the trurj or the facts all of the republicans that still believe in the big lie? >> we have to recognize that there are two facets to this challenge. there is voter access and voter outcome.

voter access is who gets an opportunity to be heard. and then election outcome, let me correct myself. it is voter access and election outcome. it is the source of the big lie. the ourt come of the election was not what they wanted and therefore they've lied about everything that preceded it. but they were sub borned and aided by those who denied access and that is where we have not put our attention. to your point about the silence, we've been so focused on the election deniers, we'v ignored the election suppressors. just as those that try to manipulate a outcome but it is who gets to participate in the process. the work that i've done for the last four years, last 15 years for most of my adult life has been focused on access. no politician is entitled to victory. but every georgian citizen and american citizen is entitled to access if they are eligible. and to the extent that the republican party has been able to lie onnize and lift up those

who will even gauge in voter suppression, but celebrate it and at the same time only chastise those who lie about the outcome, we're only paying attention to one of the side of the equation, but if we don't solve both sides, democracy falls. >> you could push back against the suppression bills as a single party. how do you make it a bipartisan effort to say listen if you are so confident that you're on the right side of history, why don't you help me expand access to the right to vote. >> unfortunately because right now this is all about winning. and we know that brian camep. there is a 288 page order that came down from a federal court. the last three claims during our fair fight action. we did not win the claims. but if he read the 288 page order repeatedly the federal judge said that brian kemp operated a racist discriminatory

harm access to the right to the vote. but the broad of the decision which came recently in the 2020-2021 term of the supreme court, permitted that type of behavior as they continue on the voting rights act. if we only focus on the lie but we ignore the architecture that made his lie plausible then we are suborning this behavior. and i refuse to be silent about this. there would be those that would love for me to stop talking and they're hopeful that we won't pay attention. brian kemp helped 50,000 black and brown people from being able to vote. 90% of them were black and brown people in 2018. he made it illegal for people to get water in line. he outsourced voter suppression to white supremacists through this upcoming bill, through the sb-202 and there has been no voice loud enough about it because everyone has been focused on the 2020 election. but we've got to be worried

about '22 and what that means for '24. i'm running for governor because if i win, when i win, i could do the work of making sure that every georgian regardless of party believes in their power to be a part of our electorate. i want us to fight for each other. i want us to have a governor who cares. who is willing to help and who protects our freedom and instead we have a governor who has proven he doesn't care and refused to help and who has attacked our freedom at every single turn. this is an opportunity for referendum in this nation about who we want to be and intend to serve and my mission is to make sure that georgians understand that there is only candidate looking forward to aid them. >> thank you for spending time with us today. we are grateful. >> thank you for having me, nicolle. >> shifting gears for us to the war in ukraine. where the ukrainian military has won back control of more parts their country as ukrainian people are getting much needed assistance from the biden

administration to help them get through the winter. my colleague and friend nbc's cal perry is back in kyiv. he'll be our guest after a quick break. don't go anywhere. break. don't go anywhere. mutual. they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. and by switching, you could even save $652. thank you, liberty mutual. now, contestants ready? go! why? why? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ shingles. some describe it as an intense burning sensation or an unbearable itch. this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks. it could make your workday feel impossible. the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you.

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because we believe there's an innovator in all of us. naomi: every year the wildfires, the smoke seems to get worse. jessica: there is actual particles on every single surface. dr. cooke: california has the worst air pollution in the country. the top 2 causes are vehicles and wildfires. prop 30 helps clean our air. it will reduce the tailpipe emissions that poison our air kevin: and helps prevent the wildfires that create toxic smoke that's why calfire firefighters,

the american lung association, and the coalition for clean air support prop 30. naomi: i'm voting yes on 30. as ukrainian forces continue to rack up wins on the battlefield and regain territory from the russians and hum ill yate the russians, there is one factor that will test everyone in the war. winter. it is coming to ukraine and the cold weather will not only impact the troops, but also the

ukrainian people. who have been reliant on russian oil and gas in the past. fresh off the biden administration's newest military aid package earlier this week, u.s. aid has announced $55 million in aid to help ukraine repair and prepare its infrastructure ahead of the winter. the funds will ensure heat for at least 7 million people and in 19 different regions across country. let's bring in my friend and colleague cal perry live in kyiv. i want to see your interview with senator, but i also want to hear your impressions of kyiv now that you're back. >> reporter: well, look this is a great opportunity for me to see kyiv. i had an escort by the state department and we had security and went to five different elections around the city. i know that you've probably organized these tours, right. and one of the things that way interesting to me was we hit significant traffic. a mean kyiv is coming back. the city is full again. everything is open. there is still a curfew here

that starts at 11:00 p.m. but at one point they they were hitting the sirens and the buzzer and racing through traffic and then come to a stop and people would cross in front of us and kind of not care that we were there. so if you didn't know that there was a war happening here, you probably wouldn't. unless you just a little bit under the surface and then you meet people who can't leave the country because they don't have a pass. so they're going to miss the birth of a child and they need to go back to the front and fight or you go to a school and taken down to the bunker like i was today with the administrator for u.s. aid and you meet kids who are terrified of the now nuclear threat. and that is what is overhanging i think ukraine. you have these extensive and significant gains on the battlefield. it is perhaps in six hours that the line moved some ten miles. so you have lightning strikes made by ukrainian forces, punching through russian lines in certain towns, russians are abandoned their post and taking off and as the russian's say

redeploying to the rear. it is another way of saying they're retreating. in other cities they're leaving the bodies of dead russian soldiers behind, an indication that the ukrainian troops are streaking past them. and all of this is making people proud of what is happening and what the ukrainian military is doing and at the same time app prehencive because you have vladimir putin talking about potentially dropping a nuclear bomb. so the power is trying to keep the power on here. you have people who have lost their homes who don't have roofs, who have no heating, who have no water. who are sleeping in the street. and this is a government that is focused on the eastern front. so she's focused on deploying that $9.89 billion that u.s. aid has pledged to ukraine. it is happening here in the capital and all over the eastern part of the country. this is the video of us headed down into the bunker under a school. and again she did it today in a capital city that is calm except

the war comes to this capital at random times and you could hear it happen. so i'm going to play for you a sound bite of me asking her about funding but listen for the explosion because you'll probably hear it. >> u.s. support for this cause is so worth it. we have provided now more than $25 billion in accommodation of military security assistance that everybody is familiar with, also direct budget support and $8.5 billion of direct budget support. that is what helping the ukrainian government pay the salaries of people who work in government ministries who keep the heat on in the winter. it is helping pay the salaries of health workers. what is at stake here is the question of whether a large power can invade a neighbor and get away with it. >> reporter: what was the explosion in we don't really

know. the ukraine government said they were exploding mines around kyiv. it is another one of the examples and it is a bit of groundhog day so i apologize but another example that people are still dying from things that are not happening on the front. there are mines still laid around the capital and they have to be blown up, nicolle. >> cal perry, what both of are you obviously standing there and there is an explosion and she doesn't really break face and neither do you. it is a remarkable sign of something. and not positive that it is all good but i'm so glad to have the interview and have you back in the county bringing us your reporting. please stay safe. >> thanks, nicolle. >> our good friend igor, adviser to vez zelenskyy. and cal said that you have never felt more affection for your city, you have never felt more alive in it and you are open to the possibility that because danger is everywhere.

>> first of all, i know what the explosion was and because i heard it and called up kyiv, and they were training demining squads just outside of kyiv, north of kyiv. so it was quite loud and there was a huge plume of spoke, but it was an accidental. so nothing to worry about there. but a lot -- >> good. >> but now the americans are going to be in ukraine. they don't care. they just heard an explosion and it is just another day in kyiv so let's enjoy life to the full elt. so that is what like is like igor, take me to the front. what is happening? >> well at moment, we could defend between stages between of our counter offensive. there are a couple of those happening. there is one happening on the eastern front toward luhansk and donetsk, the region that's been

liberated and there is also very successive offensive in the south at kherson. at the moment they're regrouping and trying not to stretch the supply lines too much but i think we're seeing more successes along the way. so i mean, it is in that sense it is doing well. there is one problem, though. with, you know, the staggering losses on the battlefield and russia has resulted to what they do best. just a few days ago we had the first -- fly into kyiv and attack a city near kyiv. and secondly, i mean, they've upped the nuclear rhetoric. so in terms of nuclear threats, i could tell you one thing loud and clear and it is not only my opinion, but every person i've spoken with including people from the president's off. ukraine will not and i will repeat will not surrender after a nuclear strike if it happens. neither will we surrender after the second one or the third one or the fourth one.

so, you know, if russia mistakenly believes that is the way to win this war, they should think twice. because it is not going to happen. people are accustomed to fears and gotten to know our fears. the thing we're once we can get a hold of that insurgency and get rid of it. now the fear is gone. we're looking forward to the victory. >> you've given me chills from my toes to the top of my head, and i have to ask you how often you and your wife talk about this threat of a nuclear attack. how real is that for your family? >> well, first of all, as i told you, we went and got a geiger counter. that's just in case. i was choosing between two positive stories. one because one is slightly edgier than the other.

but i'll tell you the edgier one. when we got the threat of nuclear threat in kyiv, people, being the beautiful people of kyiv and ukraine as they are, they face their fears with humor. so a lot of trolling happened online, and somebody came up with this crazy idea to hold an orgy if there's a nuclear strike. and everyone has been talking about it. it's really funny. it's become the trending joke a kyiv. so i actually -- if i participate in that trolling humor, viral trolling scenarios i went to the pharmacy a few days ago and people look sad and miserable, because we also have covid in kyiv at the moment. there's another we have a. the pharmacy with you quiet. i loudly asked for ie yo dine pills, that attracted everyone's attention, and some condomes. basically everyone in the pharmacy on the floor with laughter. that's the mood in kyiv.

everyone is scared. i personally do not believe putin will resort to a nuclear strike within ukrainian territory. the worst we're looking at is exercises everywhere. but you never know. you have to make every day count. that's our ukrainian reality. >> we are the beneficiaries of your candor and humor and of your pharmacy run. i don't know about the ie yo dine, but i hear you, and i'm grateful to you for keeping this all so real and in front of us. thank you so much my friend. >> thank you for having me. >> quick break for us. we'll be right back. ight back.

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♪he'd better not take the ring from me.♪ one last thing before we go, campaign promise made and delivered today from joe biden. the white house released a formal proclamation for all simple marijuana possession and is calling on governors to do the same for state offenses and ord terse administration to change hour marijuana is classified under federal law. he says as those things change, the limitations on marketing and sales of marijuana will not. we shall be right back. this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks. it could make your workday feel impossible. the virus that causes shingles

is likely already inside of you. if you're 50 years or older, ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we are gratefulle "the beat" with ari melber start right now. >> thank you so much. welcome to "the beat." i'm ari melber. our top story is a midterm set of races that are now 33 days out. and while we have covered what the candidates are saying and doing and we'll continue to do that, the top story is what the president today says is democracy on the ballot itself. because some of these candidates are so anti-democracy at a time of rising authoritarianism, that's the story. here are the latest updated facts. we can tell you a majority of republican nominees, 299 are on record running to oversee the government and sometimes elections, but they deny the