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tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  January 10, 2023 9:00pm-10:00pm PST

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the wrong way, i'm screwed. i am screwed. i can't do it -- like you get that one way and you can't undo it. and i was at a dinner party one night with -- uhm i'm not kidding! i sat next to bill nye -- now ye. now ye. and every time someone came to the table, i thought this is bill 90, and i'm naive. and then -- and then get this, i'm serious! across for me was and he could cocoa. [laughter] and it is a disaster! you know? so [laughter] and i said no! but i -- i -- am feeling really good right now because i haven't screwed up yet. all right, so -- the oscar goes to! [laughter] no no -- away no its golden globe! go to! glob go to go up -- >> somewhere andrew disappear you and ryan know less are nodding their heads with the 11th hour audience saying, they all know i can't read a
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teleprompter either! but that laced i'm in the greatest company of all within newly minted golden globe winner jennifer coolidge who will be taking us off the air tonight! and on that note, i wish you a very good and very safe night! from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you for staying up late. i'll see you at the end of tomorrow! ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ it was june of 2022, and the venue for the conservative political action conference, cpac. the venue was packed. hundreds of far-right politicians and activists gathered to claim election fraud to launch attacks against the press, donald trump was one of the main speakers, and he was slated to give a talk on chinese election interference. jason miller was there, trump's senior campaign advisor, and now the ceo of the conservative
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twitter clone getter. also in attendance, republican mark, green a far-right congressman who voted against the certification of joe biden as president. in a lot of ways, this was just anac conrence. the main difference was that this one was happening in brazil. months before that country's presidential election. all of the false claims about election fraud, they were dubbed in portuguese. this is the extent to which the maga movement embedded itself in brazilian politics. a relationship that is now worth revisiting after brazil this weekend had its own january 6th style attack, fueled precisely by fraudulent claims about rigged elections sown by right-wing politicians. that maga connection began back in 2018, when eduardo bolsonaro the son of --
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jair bolsonaro reached out to steve bannon, trump's former chief strategist. bolsonaro needed advice. he needed to know how trump had made it to power, and how his father could too. later that year, when he won the election, he credited that win to donald trump, and steve bannon. in fact, when bolsonaro made his first trip to the u.s. as president, he met with steve bannon before he met with donald trump. when those two leaders did eventually meet, trump and bolsonaro had lots of glowing things to say about one another. when he got back to brazil, bolsonaro was happy to be called "the donald trump of the tropics". trump of the tropics. to each his own. the relationship between bolsonaro land and trump world continued, and grow deeper. months after he lost the 2020 election, bolsonaro attended a cybersecurity forum, organized by mike window, and the forum was suppose to show that the 2020 election was stolen by electronic voting machines. bolsonaro had his own similar theories, and told trump world that his father had information about how hackers can get into
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brazil's electronic voting machines. and claims with no proof, were quickly shared over social media, including in brazil. after january 6th happened, eduardo bolsonaro was quoted as saying in reference to those capital rioters, if it were organized, they would've taken the capital and made demands. on its face, it sort of seemed like monday morning quarterbacking for an insurrection. in practice, january 6th might have actually provided a lesson for the bolsonaro's. when jair bolsonaro lost the presidential election on october of 2022, he strategized. his son, eduardo, immediately made trips to the u.s., and met in person with donald trump at mar-a-lago. this is one of those meetings. it took place in november of 2022, while bolsonaro is still contesting the results of the elections. there you can see eduardo bolsonaro sitting next to election denier kari lake. around that time, he reportedly met with jason miller and steve
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bannon. the dates here are important because while bolsonaro's son was in the u.s. back in brazil, thousands of bolsonaro supporters were taking to the streets claiming election fraud. they held english language signs that read, quote, brazil was stolen. they closed streets and called for the military to intervene. when they were asked about the motive, some of them said that they wanted chaos, and chaos is what they got. on sunday in a scene that had eerie parallels to our very own january 6th, hundreds of bolsonaro supporters attacked the center of government in brazil's capital. as it happened in washington, rioters broke windows and vandalized historical artifacts. they ransacked offices, and common areas. the images are so similar to the ones from the capitol attack that at times, it's hard to tell one from the other. despite all of the damage that has been done to brazilian democracy, trump and his allies keep at it. steve bannon said yesterday on his podcast that he was quote, not backing off one inch on
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this thing. this thing being presumably brazil, or maybe the attempt to destroy democracies around the world. joining us here in the studio is, -- international affairs -- sir, thank you for being here. are we getting anything wrong about the connections that we outlined in that script between brazil and the far-right end american politics? >> thank you for having me, alex. it was perfect. there would not be bolsonaro's in brazil if there was not a trump in the united states. they would not be a bolsonaro in brazil if there was not a trump president in the united states. bolsonaro and his group, they tried to replicate in brazil
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what trump did in the united states. they are major friends of donald trump, they love trump. the son of bolsonaro wore a maga hat. and so he came to cpac meetings here, and brought it to brazil so that he went to -- the crazy thing is that invasion of the capitol, it did not work well. they tried to do the same thing in brazil. >> it sounds like they almost looked at it like a workshop for what they wanted to do, and what they ended up doing later, which was to have people camped out in front of the capitol, in front of the official buildings demanding that justice for trump was never able to achieve effectively. i wonder when we talk about how this movement came to be in brazil, i think that in america, we have a hard time understanding the way that we are actively exporting election fraud, and election denialism, and conspiracy theories. can you talk a little bit about what trump and january 6th meant to brazil, and how that unfolded in your country? >> a lot! because of what trump did on
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january 6th, and what he did after he lost to joe biden. they saw that in brazil and wanted to do the same. after that, and even before, but after that bolsonaro started to talk about fraud, about the electronic ballots that wouldn't work well, that you can't trust them. you start to put this on the heads and minds of some of his former's. not all of them, but many of those workers did not believe what bolsonaro says, they voted for him for different reasons. it worked in a way, because they really think that there was faud, and lula was not legally elected president of brazil. >> had people been thinking about the concept of election fraud before it started becoming such a pervasive fire in the united states? was that something talked about in brazil prior to this? >> no, it was not talked about, the loser would always accept the results.
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lula lost three elections in the past. the vice president of lula lost to lula, he was a rival in the past. and they always accepted the results, because in brazil is different in the united states. you can count votes in a few hours, everybody voted the same way, and one person one vote, who has more? and so it is easier than the u.s.. it is harder for bolsonaro to try to do what trump did in the u.s.. >> i don't think people recognize the ways in which -- we'll, to begin with, brazil is a younger democracy than the united states of america. it is post 1985 that this democratic brazil exists. because of the history that you guys have with autocracy and military role, top down management as it were, do you think that you're in a better position to battle this kind of misinformation? to battle this kind of push towards autocracy? >> in a way, it is different.
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>> or is it the opposite? >> in some ways it's better, because brazil is not as polarized in the u.s., they don't have a two-part system, it's a multi part system. you saw the response on monday with lula and all of the governors, the judge, the senate, the house, all together. in this way it is better. as an institution, there are forces in the united states that are stronger institutions than armored forces in brazil. >> when you talk about how to quash this, this misinformation, the disinformation coming from the steve bannons, the cpac's, the international internet or conspiracy theories flourish. it also sounds as it is in the united states, there are certain funders behind this. i did not know this, but the people who were in-camped outside of the government buildings, outside of army headquarters saying that bolsonaro won the election, and the people that were the
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acolytes, effectively, of the steve bannons and bolsonaros, they had, one of them, mr. rodriguez. this is important for the new york times. he spent nine weeks believing in a tent on a narrow path with his wife. when he was provided a tour of the encampment, it had become a small village since bolsonaro had lost the election. it had showers, a laundry service, cell phones, a hospital, and 28 food stalls. this was not some ad hoc tent village. this sounds like there was funding behind this. what more do you know about the groups that may have been working to actively support bolsonaro's anti-democratic forces? >> the brazilian justice is investigating many companies, dozens of companies. some of them are linked to businesses in brazil, but also
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other sectors. we cannot generalize the other places, our business would be financed. there is still business of this investigation, and we will know soon who is behind, it because there were people behind that. >> is that largely the business that is intent on developing brazil, parts of the amazon, catel ranching, is that now what we're talking about? >> it's really strong in brazil, the size of the united states. it's different, those businesses in the region compared to our business which is much more developed. it depends a lot where we are talking about. but it is a huge sector in brazil. one of the most developed sectors in the brazilian economy for sure. >> i know that lula, the democratically elected leader has mentioned that their intent on finding out who is financing this push towards autocratic anti-democratic forces. we will be following this story there as we follow it here. it is so nice to have you onset, thank you for your reporting, thank you for the time. guga chacra international
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affair analyst guga chacra, for global tv, which is of course, brazil's largest tv network. it's great to have you here. now let's turn to ruth -- a history professor at new york university, and author of strongmen, mussolini to the president. thank you so much for joining us tonight as we kind of contemplate what january 6th has done around the world. when you look at what happened in brazil, this just on its face, is xerox copy of what was done on january 6th? >> no, it's not. you do have a playbook, which is that you want to discredit the idea of election integrity, and that is because both bolsonaro and trump had personality cults. and so if you lose, you want your leaders, sorry--your followers to think that you have been rigged against you. they will continue to venerate
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you. another thing is that you want to plan the idea that it might be necessary to avenge you, and so bolsonaro, back in june, said stuff like if necessary, we will go to war. and so he set this up, the fact that he wasn't there at the time because he went to florida, he was under investigation. he also--for him to have participated in the ritual of handing over the presidential sash would have meant that he would lose status with his followers. that is the playbook, but this was very different because they did this when it was a sunday, at a time when everything was in recess. nobody was there. they wanted to show, it was much easier to breach the barrier, easier to trash the buildings because nobody was in there. they wanted to show that the
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brazilian protesters, the bolsonristas, and the people that were protecting them in the institutions can show that they have a force, and they are a force to be reckoned with. >> what is the utility -- i mean, they were there to show that they have power, to show that they have forces. it also seems like they wanted to invite the military in, but the craziest was a prelude to a military takeover. that seems to be an important part, a piece of this, right? in the same way on january 6th, there was some hope that somehow trump would also call in the military, and then by force, they would both be kept in office. i guess i wonder when you look at that sort of inclination. in brazil, it seems
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particularly potent given the fact that the military's ruling the government until just recently. >> yes, that is a huge difference. there were protesters indeed, camped out in front of the military headquarters. they did indeed belong to -- they were hoping that the military would have the interventions. and bring the hero back. bolsonaro was in the army, and he was very nostalgic for the military dictatorship. that 21 years dictatorship only ended in 1985. that is important, because there are millions of brazilians who are again, still nostalgic, and bolsonaro was their chief. there's also millions of brazilians who know that thousands were tortured, and they were killed, and disappeared. if we want to look at why the lula government is showing exemplary strength and acting immediately to quell this, arresting 1500 people, investigating 100 companies that provided help to the protesters. you are talking about the big encampment. they might freeze the assets of 100 companies. these are things that did not happen here, but we don't have a past of military dictatorship that started with a coup. there, they know exactly what can happen if you do not nip
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this in the butt. >> i wonder when we look around the world, it did not all begin and and obviously on january 6th. it seems like there is this sweeping of the globe, whether it's in hungary, myanmar, brazil, whether it's right here at home in america. the forces of autocracy, the anti-democratic movement seemed to be spreading like a virus around the world. do you attribute that to one force -- to one catalyst in particular? is it globalization, is it economic disenfranchisement, is it the fracturing of our information systems, the atrophying of our institutions? how do you look at this moment holistically, and explain why these forces seem to be so potent right now around the world, in countries that are very different from one another? >> that's a great question. it's all of the things that you mentioned. i would also add the democracy has perhaps taken their appeal
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for granted. it is in these strongman types, where they often come from the media experience, massive communications experience. they are extremely skilled and using emotions. like trump and bolsonaro would tell their supporters that they loved them, trumpeted that in january 6th, "i love you". they would seem to be addressing the problems of a changing world, and one thing that my research shows is that these kinds of; strongmen and authoritarian regimes have an appeal when a society has gone through a lot of change. and so trump, we were right for this, after eight years of an american african president the people never accepted, you let women in the military, and so
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some people loved this, but other people feel like they are losing their status. there has been a lot of this in the world, and that partly explains the appeal of these strongman, which is going strong. >> can you talk a little bit of a point that you just made? i do think that people are in search of a paternalistic father figure, an emotional core of what is very not of peace with the rest of the message, you have these strong men that have rage and violence, essential to their message. at the same time, there is this i love, you this paternalistic attitude that you can come and
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seek safe harbor with, me that i care about you. what do you owe that to? is that people losing faith and community, not having institutions, where they feel a part of something? what is that? >> it is partly that, loneliness is a huge issue today. there is adam is a shun, and i think that this information has torn people apart. polarization tires people apart,
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and change. the perception of change, and what these guys do is that they also create chaos. they rise up and they say, i alone can fix this. they do use emotions very effectively, and so on one hand, they are defending the nation, and they also play the victim. this is very important, trump, they all say it is tricky. they all say that they are the persecuted, ones which hands against them. what bolsonaro goes into is the hospital, he recurrently goes to the hospital to see people stabbed a few years ago. he broadcasted live video from his hospital room, and he's got down on the subject to monitors, and so they are very transparent with their bodies. this makes people feel protected of them, and so when they summoned the faithful to save them, it is very appealing. and so we see these hard-core supporters camped out, ready to save their hero. >> wow, lessons from the authoritarian's playbook. professor of history at nyu, thank you for joining us tonight. we appreciate it. we have much more ahead tonight, republicans have been in a frenzy for the past 24 hours, trying to draw similarities between the discovery of classified documents at a biden think tank and the discovery of classified documents held at trump's private residence. they might be kind of off in those comparisons. we will tell you all about that, coming up. but next, now that republicans officially control the house,
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what are they planning to do with all of their incoming power? oh, boy. congresswoman zoe laufman joins us to discuss, stay with us. flu symptoms hit harder than the common cold. so it takes the right tool for the job... to keep it together. now there's new theraflu flu relief with a max strength fever fighting formula. the right tool for long lasting flu symptom relief. hot beats flu.
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ladies, please! you put it on airplane mode when you pass our house. i was trying to work. we're workin' it too. yeah! work it girl! woo! i want to hear you say it out loud. well, i could switch us to xfinity. those smiles. that's why i do what i do. >> have you brought with you that and the paycheck. some of those devices which would've enabled the cia to use this? >> we have indeed, for killing people. >> don't pointed at me. when it, fires it fires silently? >> almost silently, yes. >> when it strikes the target,
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does the target know that he has been hit and about to die? >> that depends on the particular dart used. >> that was idaho democratic senator frank church in 1975, grilling cia director about the cia's secret targeted assassination program. that hearing was one of several held by what has today known as the church committee. he was a special committee led by senator church in the 70s to investigate abuses of power by the intelligence community. the committee conducted a broad, nonpartisan investigation that led to important revelations about the cia's covert operations. that included assassinating
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foreign leaders and infiltrating civil rights groups. and a lot of other previously unknown activities. prior to those hearings, there was no senate intelligence committee to oversee the cia. congress created that oversight body as a direct result of the church committees work. now today, house republicans are using the legacy of that important committee to justify their own attempts to investigate the investigations into former president trump. house republicans voted today along party lines to create what they are calling, a new church style subcommittee to investigate the quote, weaponization of the federal government.
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unlike the original church committee, this new effort by house republicans appear to have explicitly partisan goals. specifically, undermining law enforcement investigations into january 6th, and former president trump's mishandling of classified documents. the committee has given itself broad powers. how speaker kevin mccarthy has reportedly agreed to give the committee at least as much funding in staffing as the house special committee, and the resolution it establishes that the community would give it the ability to collect information about ongoing criminal investigations. that means the republicans would seek unprecedented access to non public information about the justice department's current cases involving the former president. that sort of examination effectively asking the doj to open up its books before any investigation is complete, that has not really happened before. it can greatly compromise the departments work. law enforcement and intelligence agencies can and do commit abuses of power, as the church committee revealed nearly half a century ago. investigating a former president for his own clear abuses of power is not usually what we think of when we think of a rogue fbi or cia. what should we expect from this new committee, and how will
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congressional democrats respond? joining us now is california democratic congresswoman zoloft, former member of the january 6th committee. thank you so much for your time. giving pause to an open investigation seems deeply problematic here. what is your expectation about how successful kevin mccarthy and his band of merry republicans are going to be in trying to get involved in the justice department's ongoing work? >> it's a huge concern. to the best of my knowledge, there has never been a committee of the house that has been directed to interfere in an ongoing criminal investigation that is being undertaken by the department of justice. that would be a first, and entirely improper. that's not the role of oversight, we oversee policy. and finding, but don't interviewer in prosecutions. and further concern is that it looks like the department of justice is maybe taking a look, at least at one of the house members who advocated for this committee. as we know, from news reports and his own report, representative scott perry had his phone seized. that only happened because a
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warrant was issued. a warrant is only issued if a judge finds probable cause the crime has been committed. and then the evidence of that crime might be found on the object. he would think it would be appropriate for him to be involved and interfere with that investigation of himself is really absurd. let's remember, the view of the republican members of congress, who supported the formation of this committee, sought pardons from president trump. i think many of us think that seeking a pardon is at least some evidence of guilt. this is trouble from the beginning. >> you mentioned scott perry, who has come up a lot in the context of january 6th, and the plot to use the slates of electors to complicate the certification of election results.
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jim jordan, who made sure of, this is somebody who refused to corroborate with the january 6th committee. dan bishop, another person thrown into this panel, he voted against certifying the election results. are they basically just trying to get a jump on potential indictments by looking at what the justice department is doing? it is hard for me to imagine how the doj cooperates with this at all, and this does not end up being an issue of the legislative branch versus the executive branch i. e. the doj. and the supreme court, do you see it going there? >> i never like to speculate as to what a fellow member of congress's motive is. it looks to me like this is an effort by the interference of ongoing prosecutions. the department of justice is likely not going to agree to that. i am sure this will be litigated extensively. one of the things that i have learned in the january 6th
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committee is that -- how long it can take to get resolutions into these questions that revolve around which branch of government has which rights. and so i think that we will be in court for a long time. >> and what do democrats do in terms of the seats on this committee? a lot of people look at the republican people sitting on the committee, the decision not to effectively participate with the exception of course of adams kinzinger and liz cheney, who are basically labeled heretic's inside of the gop. i think the democrats understand that a very big misstep on the part of the gop, they were completely in the dark in large part as far as the activities on the january six committee. there were a lot of explosive pieces of information that the american public saw unfiltered. i know that pete aguilar, one of the democratic leadership has suggested the democrats will be on also it's of committees, do they play ball and take seats on a committee that may have very questionable goals? >> i think today would be a
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huge mistake not to take our seats at these subcommittees. or committee, in the case of the china investigation. i'll tell you, i don't want to be on it. i think i've paid my dues through service on the january 6th committee, and there are plenty of other able members of the judiciary committee. i think that it would be a mistake, even though it is a mistake to have a new subcommittee, it would be an error for democrats to not participate and play our appropriate role of calling out what we see is going wrong. >> does the mere existence of this committee muddy the waters in terms of the work that the january 6th committee accomplished? just the fact that republicans would be able to sort of cast dispersions on the work of the entire list of investigators they work to bring the truth to the american public? is the goal already met in some way? >> i don't think so. it's possible that it is a motivation, but one of the things that the committee did
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that i feel satisfied with is that not only did we issue our report in the appendix's, but we released all of the footnotes, and all of the evidence. republicans can say whatever they want to discredit it, but the news media and the public can go and read the original documents. they can look at the emails, they can look at the transcripts, they can listen to the radio traffic. it's not going to be possible to just effectively lie, which i think may have been a goal of some of my colleagues. >> congresswoman zoe laughed, thanks so much. >> or download, it if you just want to use a lot of printer paper. good to see you as always, congresswoman. >> thank you.
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>> coming, up the really big and important thing that people seem to be missing about the discovery of classified documents in president biden's old office. that is coming up next, stay with us.
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more or less stretches all the way up the pacific west coast. and he spent time in l. a. or san francisco, the chances are you have spent some time on the 101, sitting, on it probably. it is a major traffic artery in those two cities with through traffic. this is the 101 in the bay area today. it basically turned into a free flowing river. it has been raining relentlessly all over. that's the 101. that's what it looks like today. because it has been raining relentlessly all over the state of california since sunday, which has been causing catastrophic flooding and heavy winds. so far 17 people have died as a result of the storm. there's also a search underway for a missing five year old who
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was swept away by the floodwaters. the storm is has called sinkholes and mudslides. it is down trees. it has flooded entire homes and washed peoples bills cars away. more than 175,000 people, 1000 people are without power tonight. 50,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their homes. 44 million people are currently under a flash flood watches. that is 10% of the entire united states of america. in montecito, near santa barbara, that entire city is under a mandatory evacuation. new york times reporter there describes hearing the sound not of the rain but of the boulders getting carried away in the surges of water in the streets. the reporters said the air smelled like mud. all this catastrophic rain is the result of what is called a atmospheric river. it is the storm looks kind of
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like a skinny winding band in the shape of a river which then dumps an enormous amount of water once the storm makes landfall. it's the kind of storm that is liable to get more intense as a result of climate change, because warmer air is capable of holding more moisture. just one of these storms can carry up to 15 times the volume of the mississippi river. california has gotten hit by five of those atmospheric rivers just in the last two weeks. and it is not letting up anytime soon. lieutenant governor of california warned residents today that more rain is on the way, because another storm is expected to make landfall sometime tomorrow. meteorologists say a dry pattern is not expected in california until more than a week from now. this is going to get worse before it gets better. we have more ahead tonight. stay with us. ♪ ♪
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experiment. stay with me. let's say you had a job at the white house where you are in national security. you naturally had access to classified information in the course of doing your job at the white house. then you either accidentally or intentionally took some classified documents at home or to another office. in one scenario, hundreds of documents were found, in another about a dozen classified documents were found. putting the numbers aside, it turns out in both scenarios, some of those documents
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included classified information about foreign intelligence. both scenarios are not good. those classified documents should have been returned to the white house and then sent to the national archives when your white house work ended. but whether by accident or on purpose, it happened. so now what? either the national archives realize its documents are missing in that suit to return them, or a colleague discovers them in your office, stowed away with some other personal items. now you have two choices, if you find the documents yourself. you can tell the national archives, or you can wait until the national archives comes to you to request them. you can voluntarily hand over the documents and cooperate, or you can ignore multiple requests. you can refuse to hand them over. and then you can hand over some of them but not all of them, and drag on the process for roughly a year and a half. and then you can continue to fight to give them back for so long and so hide that the fbi has to go to court to obtain a search warrant to execute on
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your home because you refused to just give the back. which of course brings us to today's news, the lawyer for president biden discovered a dozen classified documents dating from his time in the obama administration. the documents were found on november 2nd at an office biden used in d. c. after leaving the white house. attorney general merrick garland has assigned a u.s. attorney in chicago, one appointed by donald trump, to investigate. at a press conference earlier this week biden said he was surprised to learn or any government records there any that he can have office are cooperating fully. contrast that with former president trump, where the national archives and asked him multiple times for documents and realized was missing. trump struggling along for months. the saget came to a head in august, when the fbi took the extraordinary steps of executing a search warrant on trump's florida home, leading
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to trump being investigated for possible instruction, violations of the espionage act, and destruction of records. again, both situations, donald trump and joe biden and found themselves in are not great one's. but one of these things are not like the other. joining us now is attorney marks a, who specializes in cases involving national security. mark, thanks for being here tonight. are we right to draw a very broad distinction between what is happening in the biden case and what happened in the trump case? >> you're not wrong at all. you laid out all of these facts, and you even lay out all of them because you probably have to take your whole program to indicate the differences that led to why the fbi had to execute a search warrant and why these two cases are not like one another and neither of them are good cases, but if president trump and his legal team had acted the way, so far we've seen the biden team act, there would be no legal issues for donald trump. nobody would've said anything about it, because it would've been just looked at as oh, not a good situation, but frankly, somewhat commonplace. not to the extent it was, but
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the mishandling of classified documents happened all the time, we are only criminal, almost always administrative in nature, and it was only because of the specific facts in donald trump's case that you laid out, with respect to obstruction in particular, involving himself personally, which we have no knowledge of with respect to biden so far, that is what makes the difference. >> merrick garland has assigned an independent investigator, a u.s. attorney in chicago, to look into this. what is he examining? is he looking for an chant? where does he start in a case like this? >> it's going to be fairly straightforward, though perhaps somewhat complicated as it was over a period of years, i guess 2017 when the files were placed there, presumably. although they date back to 2013, so we don't know how they got into the box. but he'll essentially be trying to trace back, how did those files get into that folder, which was mistakenly labeled personal items, or intentionally labeled personal items, if you can figure that out? how did they get into the box? out of the box get into the
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locked closet? who had access to the locked closet? did anyone have access to the box or the file folder? was anything compromised? and yes, it may even involve interviewing president biden to see what he may or may not know. probably so fire publicly he said he doesn't know anything about this. it wouldn't surprise me, but we'll wait to see where the investigation goes. >> what makes it a crime? i assume intent is part of it. is the number of records, the sensitivity of the information, one of the threshold here? >> this is where law and policy and practice may all diverge.
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on its face having a classified document at home, even if you want to look at a book like no easy day, the book i worked on about bin laden being killed, there were supposedly classified information in that book. i have a copy. you want to download wikileaks documents. still classified. that could be, if the government wanted to, prosecutable. but that's not what the government does as a policy or practice. the cases of mishandling classified information, people have been prosecuted, have been egregious, voluminous amounts of pack rat hoarding type of situations. no espionage, no leaking to the
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media, just compiling all the documents. i had a client once was prosecuted for it and it included documents the dated back to east germany in the 50s. the country doesn't even exist. but it was looked to be as willful that this person knew they should have not had the documents and not return them. which, again, you compare and contrast the two cases for trump and biden. >> attorney mark zaid, who knows all about this stuff. and when something smells fishy when something does not. a pleasure to speak with you. thank you for the your wisdom tonight, mark. >> thank you, alex. >> we have one more story to get to tonight. there is one county in this country this week where they are still counting ballots from the 2020 election. not the 2022 election, the 2020 election. that's next. stay with us. humpty dumpty does it with a great fall. wonderful pistachios. get crackin'
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millions have made the switch from the big three to the best kept secret in wireless: xfinity mobile that means millions are saving hundreds a year with the fastest mobile service. and now, introducing, the best price for two lines of unlimited. just $30 per line there are millions of happy campers out there. and this is the perfect time to join them... save hundreds a year over t-mobile, verizon, and at&t with xfinity mobile, and for a limited time get $400 off a new eligible 5g phone. >> today marks the tenth day of switch today.
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the year 2023. but in pennsylvania's lycoming counties some people are still stuck in 2020. for them right day to have a hand recount of the 2020 presidential election. though donald trump actually won the county in 2020, 5000 people signed a petition calling for a recount. why? these folks were skeptical that in a county with growing numbers of registered republicans, somehow president biden performed better in 2020 than hillary clinton did in
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2016. so the county commissioners bowed to the pressure and they ordered a hand recount. as of last night, all the mail-in and provisional ballots have been counted and officials and started working through the in-person ballots. after checking more than 23,000 ballots, it look for a minute as if they had found something. the count was off by five votes in one precinct. but it turns out the hand recount years had made a mistake. and when their work was checked, the numbers matched the original official results. with more than a third of the approximately 60,000 ballots counted on day one, this little recount could and as early as tomorrow. but now more than two years since the 2020 election, it is unclear just how much this recount will change any minds. for most of us, it is the year 2023. but for some people, it will never stop being 2020. that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. and now it is time for the last word with lawren

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