reporters about those classified documents found in the president's home, private office, not getting into politics, she says, not going beyond the doj, not going beyond the president, not getting ahead of the process, not getting into key specifics. she did reveal that the white house did not have the heads up about the appointment of a special counsel to look into this matter. we'll have a lot more coverage here on msnbc, starting with nicolle wallace, who's picking it up right now. hey, there, everyone! it's 4:00 in new york, in an apparent attempt to project that this very deliberate and apolitical department of justice is in indeed completely independent and impartial, what we saw today is undeniably the display of two very different standards being applied on two

very different timelines when it comes to the appointment of a special counsel when it comes to the handling of classified documents. merrick garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the handling of some classified documents. his appointment follows the development that a second set of classified documents were found, these in a storage space in the garage of president biden's home in wilmington, delaware. the president's lawyer said it was a small number of documents. watch. >> on january 5th, 2023, mr. laush briefed me on the results of his initial investigation and advised me that further investigation by a special counsel was warranted. based on mr. laush's initial investigation, i concluded that under the special counsel regulations, it was in the public interest to appoint a special counsel. as i have said before, i strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with

integrity, but under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. this appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. and to making decisions undisputably guided only by the facts and the law. >> so the man garland appointed, robert herr, is the former republican appointed u.s. attorney for maryland, who before that served in a senior role in the justice departments. as you heard garland say, this decision was made to underscore doj's devotion to the facts and the law. so we'll look at the facts. take a step back to last year, when it was the twice-impeached disgraced ex-president's handling of classified documents under the microscope. merrick garland appointed special counsel jack smith to oversee that investigation in november, after many, many, many

months of back and forth and obstruction between the trump team, the national archives, and ultimately the fbi and doj. according to the affidavit that the fbi used to gain a warrant from the courts for searching mar-a-lago, the national archives sent a criminal referral in february, indicating that 15 boxes of records were taken from mar-a-lago. the fbi launched a criminal investigation and found in those boxes were, quote, 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as confidential. 92 documents marked as secret. 25 documents marked top-secret. further, the fbi agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments and dissemination controls. hcs, that's information gather ered from human sources, human intelligence. fisa, that's information collected from foreign

surveillance, orcon, noforeign, and si, special intelligence. after all of that, then the former president and his team were found to have not have handed over all the classified documents. the fbi was forced to go there and take these things themselves. so, let's look at the other one. let's look at what happened before president biden's special counsel was appointed. in november, president biden's lawyers found less than a dozen documents in an office he used in washington and turned them over to the national archives. that's about it. garland assigned u.s. attorney john laush to look into the matter and biden's team subsequently informed laush when they found more documents in biden's garage, unlike his predecessor who described what the fbi took from mar-a-lago as mine, mine, mine, mine! biden noted how serious this was. >> as i said earlier this week, people know i take classified

documents and classified material seriously. i also said we're cooperating fully and completely with the justice department's review. as part of that process, my lawyers reviewed other places where documents from my time as vice president were stored and they finished the review last night. they discovered a small number of documents with classified markings in storage areas and file cabinets in my home and my personal library. the department of justice was immediately notified and the lawyers arranged for the department of justice to take possession of the document. >> so the difference between these two cases, so stark, even conservative operative karl rove saw to point it out. >> there are differences. for example, how many documents? in biden's case, there appear to be about ten, in the case of president trump, hundreds. how did they get there? we don't yet know how the

documents got to the biden office connected with his activities on behalf of the university of pennsylvania. we know that president trump ordered the removal of the documents to mar-a-lago. how responsive were they when the biden people found out about it? they called and immediately called the appropriate authorities and turned them over. we spent a year and a half watching the drama unfold in mar-a-lago and it had to end in a police search to recover the documents. >> that's where we srt today. thank you, karl, with some of our favorite reporters and friends. "washington post" national investigative reporter, carol leonnig is here, also joining us, former deputy assistant attorney general, harry lipman. former federal prosecutor and legal analyst, glenn kirschner is also back. with me at the table, my friend, donny deutsch. carol leonnig, tell me what we know to be the facts at this hour about the classified documents that the biden white house and the biden lawyers have turned over to the archives and

doj. >> nicole, you couldn't be more right in focusing on the differences between the so-called trump case and the biden case. what we know so far about biden's classified records is that an assistant in his office is feeling very badly because there were less than a dozen, but still, at least 11 or 12 copies of documents that were classified, that were in and discovered in early november, in his center, based in wilmington and also with washington offices. later, very much later, in the last couple of days, more, a handful more of documents were found that were closer to biden's home in wilmington. these stem from his time as vice president and the big question is, of course, how did these get stuffed, essentially, into boxes full of other records, diplomatic information, personal notes reports, et cetera. how did this happen?

but what we also know is that in both instances, in early november and again in this last week, the department of justice was notified by intermediaries for president biden that these documents existed and needed to be returned post haste. the special counsel naming, as i'm sure you have explored and will explore in much more detail, is a decision by the attorney general that this couldn't look more worse, even though the cases are so different, you cannot have an attorney general appointed by a president, now responsible for investigating whether anything untoward happened in the handling of these records, in places that were not secured. now, it was not a private club in west palm beach, but it was still not a locked, classified documents storage room or a skiff. and so this must be thoroughly

investigated, how these documents got there and whether or not there is any damage assessment, any damage done from the fact that they were not properly secured. >> and harry litman, what i would like towns, it's my sense from two sources close to biden world that the investigation conducted by the u.s. attorney out of the midwest was probing all the questions, all the smart questions and security concerns carol just delineated. it's my understanding that the clock starts over, the investigation starts over with the special counsel being named. why in your view was this step necessary? >> well, you know, nicole, i'm really a dissenter here. i don't think it was necessary, because the regulation that garland invokes says specifically, you have to determine that a criminal investigation is warranted before you get to extraordinary service. and we've heard a lot of reasons to worry about the politics of it, even the policy, what

happens and why is it so apparently easy to spirit out classified documents, but not a whisper of potential criminal conduct, unless what the chicago u.s. attorney told garland is more than that's been reported. the clock does start over now, but that's because under the regulation, a special counsel has to come from outside the department, her being a trump-appointed u.s. attorney, now an attorney in private practice, highly respected, sort of hard-nosed. so the internal u.s. attorney in chicago wouldn't fit that bill. but i think it's telling that garland made a decision, everyone is applauding it with, but nevertheless, the letter of the regulation, i think, did not require it. >> i don't know who everyone is that's applauding it. i didn't hear the claps i've been making in the last 24 hours. >> it's not my first hit. >> let's stay here, harry. let's not zoom past this.

there are a lot of dissenters and you just made a very important legal distinction. special counsel regulars are for criminal investigations that are extraordinary in nature. and there's something moronic about garland standing there and saying, we can handle it with integrity, but we won't. it feels like a bit of a dodge. what is garland protecting? >> you know, protecting -- i think he is bowing to the political impaired which was getting louder and louder, but i think you are 100% right. he could have stood up and said, look, under the regulars, their first meet must be a criminal investigation warranted, and if there were one here and we have no reason to think it, nicole, but presumably it would be this medium-level staffer to the vice president some eight years ago. that's not the sort of thing you need a special counsel for. you need a special counsel for -- if biden has acted criminally. but the record seems quite clear from what we know, not only was

there no intent, which is the standard we've heard again and again and again with trump, there's not even knowledge. the inadvertence here isn't even on his part. i personally don't see what the special counsel is supposed to look into. nevertheless, if the special counsel looks into it, gives him a clean bill of health, it will blunt the increasing noisy criticism from the hill and the new speaker about the so-called double standard. >> let me deal with the noise, the noise is how we got here. it's how we're now a country that supports insurrections, insurrections in brazil. where the rule of law appears more robust and in better health than the rule of law in the united states of america. and i understand that merrick garland and lisa monaco are very afraid of the new speaker and specifically the jordan subcommittee, which we spent a lot of time on this week, but this won't appease them. they are heading down a path of appeasement, glenn kirschner. and i wonder where you think that path ultimately leads?

>> you know, appeasement is never a good thing. you have to stand on principle and let the criticism come. let's face it, nicole. there are some who are forever going to be in donald trump's camp. nothing will ever persuade them that things are really on the up and up, and the department of justice has really made all the right things fair and independent decisions from a place that is entirely apolitical. but let me quibble a little bit with harry's view. uh understand where he's coming from. i think once attorney general garland decided to have the u.s. attorney in chicago, john laush, conduct the first review of the evidence and the facts and the circumstances, and u.s. attorney laush said, in his name, there was enough to have a special counsel appointed, i think that sort of sealed the deal for merrick garland, and that i think almost compelled him to appoint a special counsel. because merrick garland is still

playing to an audience of folks who care about the rule of law and the integrity of the department of justice. so he's trying to protect and preserve that, even though i agree, it kind of feels like overkill and it seems like these two circumstances may have some superficial similarity, but, boy, they couldn't be more different, particularly with respect to what happened after these two men learned that there were documents in their possession that shouldn't be there. joe biden promptly did the right thing, getting them back to the national archives and alerting the department of justice and donald trump went on a year-plus-long campaign to continue to unlawfully possess them. two dramatically different circumstances. >> and i hear what you're saying about the u.s. attorney made this recommendation and basically garland is obligated,

either by policy or law or ethics or his own code to heed that recommendation. but i want to understand the two very different triggers for the special counsel. i mean, for trump, it was eight back and forths with the national archives, three with the fbi, a search of mar-a-lago, and an ongoing belief that the crimes involved handling of classified documents were being committed at mar-a-lago as well as crimes of obstruction of justice. it's my understanding based on the latest doj filings that there's a belief in the justice department that both are still happening today. but even that didn't trigger the appointment of a special counsel. it was trump that put that in motion when he announced his intention to run for president. in this case it was about, what, three weeks of looking at the facts and that a special counsel is appointed. can you explain what looks like

a very unequal application of the appointment of a special counsel, glenn? >> so it's tough for me to explain the inexplicable, but let me give it a shot, nicole. i do believe that merrick garland is guided by his own sense of ethics and his own determination to preserve the institution for better or worse. and so i think he bends over backwards. i think once it was announced, it was the only acquisition for merrick garland's boss for the presidency. now there is a conflict. now it's unavoidable. the department of justice has a conflict. i agree we heard about this special counsel appointment for the joe biden's documents at

light speed, so we're kind of mixing apples and oranges there on the timing front, but i really think that the question that is bothering me most right now is why did it take jack smith's appointment on the 18th to all of a sudden see this increase in the pace and the scope of an investigation that should have been up and running at a full sprint ever since i maintain right after the insurrection and it sure doesn't feel like merrick garland was sprinting towards the finish line. >> was he running, glenn? how would you actually -- what was the pace with which merrick garland was pursuing potential criminality on the part of drrp and his inner circle, as it pertained to january 6th? >> it feels to me that he was walking at a leisurely pace, at a time in our nation's history

when we needed a flat-out sprint, because i think he was old school in his approach to this investigation, handling it the way we ordinary handle, pyramid conspiracies, but this is not a pyramid conspiracy. i maintain it's not even a hub and spoke conspiracy. we should call it an octopus conspiracy with all of the tentacles that are playing out and thrashing about. i think merrick garland in the 24 years that he was a judge, he was a prosecutor before that and a darned good one, i think he became too judicial, too circumspect, not aggressive enough in meeting this moment of danger to our democracy. >> and carol, i guess i ask, because doj is a national security agency. it houses the nation's prosecutors and houses the national security division. and the world's national security crisis is that we are now exporting insurrections.

what happened in brazil is an extension of the language, the rhetoric, and the playbook carried out here, where our judicial system, our rule of law, appears very sick, if as glenn just said, our attorney general is quote walking at a leisurely pace and probing those accountable for the deadly january 6th insurrection here. >> you know, i have to say, glenn and i agree about a lot of things, and i couldn't agree more with his summary thus far. and i would add a few things. many of the subpoenas that jack smith as issued since starting his job -- in fact, the clock began four days after he was appointed, that subpoenas began rolling out of his office and were in the receipt of people in trump's orbit, and also, in the hands of election officials all around the country in swing states. those subpoenas were for basic,

basic building block number one kind of information. hey, what communications did you have with john eastman? what kind of communications did you have with jeffrey clark, who was trying to claim there was a fraud in georgia, when there was none. and he was a senior doj official, bucking to become the new ag in the final days of the trump administration. these are kinds of communications that would have been gettable january 7th, 2021. and it's hard to imagine what the justification was for not asking for them. there are a few things people will quibble about, about how aggressive somebody needed to be on january 7th and what new things they needed to learn. but those were pretty basic communiques and lots of people knew in public open sources about jeffrey clark and john eastman and all of these individuals, some of whom were first interviewed, by the way, i won't name each one, but some of these principles were first interviewed by congressional committee. that's just not the way that the

department of justice rolls. and you know it better than anybody. they're the first ones breaking down the door, the first ones finding the information, and it's a big open question. people keep asking me over and over again, why are we seeking this now in november, december, of 2022, two years after this event. i don't envy merrick garland, someone i used to cover in federal court when he was a well respected, highy esteemed appellate judge and the chief of that bench for a period of time. i don't envy him his position. but as a reporter who covers this matter, i think he's in a terrible box, because he has to answer for what happened for the first year of 2021, and no matter what he does in terms of naming a special counsel now for january 6th or for biden and his documents, he is going to be pilloried by the right for, you know, damned if you do, damned

if you don't. he's going to be pilloried either way. when you're in that situation, maybe the way to approach is it to basically investigate old school and being kind of justice department that says, hey, come on in and plead guilty on friday or we'll see you in court for your charges on monday. >> so, what glenn and carol have described is politicization. inaction is a political influence, as well. and i think hakeem jeffries should call jim jordan's bluff and say, i want to put some members on your investigative committee to look at politics impacting doj. and i believe and i said this before the inauguration, that the new leaders of doj believe that washing the stain of the bill bar era off of doj means vigorously pursuing the cases into hunter biden. they did not believe it meant treating ex-president trump like

he wasn't above the law. there is a big debate there, and they are only investigating him now because of cassidy hutchinson's public testimony. >> yeah, look, i think you have laid out, the speed -- the doj speed trap or lack of speed or what not, and democrats wouldn't have a problem here if you and karl rove and carol and glenn and harry could go door-to-door and explain these differences. and really lay them out. but unfortunately, this is a communications problem. and this is a huge communications problem. because to 330 million people in this country who are not going to see you guys door-to-door, they are going to hear, oh, oh, they all -- >> everybody does it! >> you know, that's a big problem. and you guys have laid out the differences and it is apples and oranges. certainly apples and bananas. the problem also you have is, that all along, the conventional wisdom and obviously the lawyers no better. the one case they have on trump is the documents and the obstruction of justice. and that was the thing that was

going to, quote, get him. but the bigger, the bigger existential thing on the table was january 6th, of course. and the seditious conspiracy and overthrow democracy. and i think merrick garland is right in going overboard in this lane to protect the perceived integrity when you're going after the big kahuna, so to speak. i don't think you have a choice. you and i will disagree on that. i don't think it's appeasement, i think it's the right politics, the right communication strategy. and unfortunately, this is kind of a mess for the democrats right now, no matter how much is parsed, you saw corrine, our old friend doing the press conference before. she was under siege, and you could almost see her head explode, because she wanted to shake everybody and say, look at the differences here. >> but carol, therein lives the problem, the doj is not supposed to be driven by sound bites and politics, and it would appear very much from the outside and from the informed folks close to

that i've spoken to over the last 24 hours, it is also the impression on the inside that they are running scared about what this subcommittee holds for them and they are just trying to throw everything -- you know, the alligator is in the swamp and the boat is gone and so they're trying to feed things to the alligator to keep it from eating them. the alligator always eats them. the alligator will chew up the chair and come for them anyway. what is your make on what is driving this? >> i'll go back to, i don't envy merrick garland, his situation, but they find themselves facing a republican congress that has now accused the department of justice and fbi of being weaponized to go after republicans. they're going to start questioning all manner of individuals on their decision making process about investigations. when you and i know skpempb on this panel knows that the vast majority, 99.

99% of the department of justice is about checking your politics at the door and proceeding in an investigation. we all know know that, because we've lived here, we've covered it, we know what those people are like. garland, i'm willing to disagree with harry, although he and i often find ourselves in similar viewpoints. i have to disagree with him and say, no matter what the statute said, there was no way garland would be able to not appoint a special counsel when the president of the united states is in the crosshairs in any potential -- if there's any risk, any way that anyone he was involved with withholding, cob sealing, improperly handing classified documents, there's no

way out of thi without a special counsel. and that's not even an exit door. i think this is what's going to happen. i try not to speculate, but based on the facts i know today, here's what's going to happen. hur is going to recommend a declaration. there's no crime here. all the documents will return, they've done a fervent search, and there's no crime. not by any person and with no relationship to biden. and merrick garland will find himself accused of somehow putting his finger on the scale, even though he kept his finger away, he's going to be accused of steering that ddeclination. >> of course they are. i'm so glad you said that. that's the perfect place to pause for the day. harry, glenn, donnie, stick around. when we come back, the department of justice continuing

to follow the money behind the january 6th flexion on the capitol, as we've been discussing. the ex-president's legal team was hit with a new and very much wide-ranging subpoena that could point to some sort of final acceleration and that part of the criminal probe. plus, embattled congressman george santos continues to run from questions today, as calls for his resignation grow. he did say that he now leads a, quote, honest life, whatever that means, as more stories into his mysterious big money fund-raising ploys come to life. and later in the program, what was it about kim jong-un that had the president of the united states publicly embrace him after for many, many months threatening fire and fury and war against north korea? that brand-new explosive reporting and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't do anywhere. k break. don't do anywhere.

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it is one of the most basic, yet effective tried and true techniques at an investigator's disposal, follow the money. uncovering the what, the what, the when of cash flow. according to a wide-ranging subpoena sent to trump campaign officials last month, subsequently reviewed by "the washington post," it appears the department of justice is doing just that now, as part of its january 6th investigation. they are now following the money. "the post" reports this, this newly revealed subpoena with nbc news has not independently reviewed, covers more than two dozen categories. among them, important financial details surrounding the

insurrection. quote, one part of the four-page legal document asks for recipients to reveal if anyone other than themselves paying for legal representation. and if so, to provide a copy of the retention agreement for that legal work. the subpoena shows the justice department is interested in other trump entities besides the save america pac, which "the post" reported was a subject of inquiry by investigators. it seeks all documents and communications related to other trump-affiliated groups, including the make america great again pac, and the trump make america great again committee. recipients were also asked for documents related to the genesis of an election defense fund, an entity that trump officials created to raise money from grassroots donors after the election. if it feels at all to you like doj is finally getting to this and sharpening its january 6th investigation, your hunch is

probably spot-on. separately, several lawyers involved in the investigation said that the january 6th grand jury had accelerated its activities in the recent weeks, bringing in a rapidfire of witnesses, both high and low level. part of that may have to do with special counsel jack smith, the subject today of new reporting in "the new york times." quote, the action that smith have taken since he began in november suggests a prosecutor on the move to resolve concurrent investigations into trump's retention of government documents and his actions during the january 6th attack on the capitol before a presidential election, in which his subject is a declared candidate. we're back with harry, glenn, and donnie. harry, your take on this new batch of reports. >> i think they're important. he is a prosecutor of the move. there are things to be said about what he was doing before. what's significant about the subpoena to me is that they really are going for people other than trump. giuliani ought to be afraid. sidney powell ought to be

afraid. in other words, the big thing, the big investigative move is a get a cooperating witness. as far as we know, they don't have that yet on the january 6th crimes. so this suggests to me more of an aggressive effort to turn over rocks and get people who make leverage. just really quickly on what carol was saying before. the point is not about garland, is that he was letting other things effect him. the point is that he was and it's not the letter of the law. that's noteworthy for what merrick garland is. that's the only point. >> i appreciate that. glenn, i want to ask you, again, dangerous when non-lawyers throw these words around, but does it look like they are trying to probe one of the crimes that was referred by the committee was about fraud. does it look like they're right froeb whether there was an entire conspiracy to defraud donors to these pacs? >> it sure does, nicole.

this is a really wide evidentiary net that jack smith cast, and what we learned courtesy of carol leonnig's great reporting and her colleagues at "the washington post" that these subpoenas went out in early december. jack smith was appointed on november 18th. i understand that harry wants to move it to the side, i'll drag it right back into the spotlight and beat the dead horse, nicole, with your permission, just a couple of more pops at the dead horse. it's really hard to understand why these very basic investigative steps took so darned long. with jack smith, it looks like moving at light speed. if i can give voice to the hero fatigue that ihink we were all suffering from. bob mueller was going to be the guy to hold donald trump accountable, and he wasn't. he couldn't, unfortunately, because of the horrific lloc memo saying that you can't indict a sitting president,

which is the stuff of banana republics, and merrick garland who we thought was going to come galloping in so i hope that third time's a charm. and it looks that jack smith is going after not only the money, but everything that could be part and parcel of the conspiracy, so much of which was developed and exposed to us by a congressional committee. as harry and others have said, this is ordinarily not the way criminal investigations unfold. >> some of is that the norm busting was a hallmark of the -- we all learned. i carried a constitution around for four years. we all learned that so much of what we relied on in our politics and our government a norm. and we all learned that there were no norms that trump didn't just blow through, but revel in

blowing through. i think we learned that this norm that's been obliterated, that congress goes ahead of doj puts the emphasis back on the fact that the people that trump scared were scared. and it changed their behavior. trump scared people in congress. and so they didn't aggressively pursue certain things. the democrats did impeach his twice. but republicans that largely agreed with both cases kept their mouth shut and voted to acquit. the department of justice, who believes its brand is to be impartial, have not acted that way. as glenn just said, a congressional committee with a lot of cases, far sub-par tools than the department has, is way out ahead of it. it's another norm that's been obliterated that helps donald trump to continue to be houdini, evading accountability. >> he's always had this magnanimous gift to be houdini, as you said. to be able to get -- it's so

ironic, because he is anything but a leader, yet one of the great leadership qualities is getting people to follow you, however it is. and that he was a powerful, powerful leader to his minions. the other thing that was in these, in these latest subpoenas was the connection, what did they know and not know about the dominion voting machines? i think that's going to be so key to the lie underneath the big lie. and the fact pat wideness of this. and that they are clearly going after a wide net here, as far as for the good guys is very, very good news. >> harry, quickly, why is the dominion and smartmatic information important? >> one of the things it asked, what you actually knew. this is why i say giuliani and others, they say that dominion

was corrupt and it relayed them to chaves, et cetera. so it goes right to the heart of it and to other people besides trump who might potentially cooperate. >> harry litman and glenn kirschner, we're glad to have you on normal crazy nuz days, but especially this one. up next for us, george santos saying the fate of his political career should be up to voters, all of them. but what if those voters are told lie after lie after lie after lie. more about what we're learning today in the scandal that just won't quit scandaling. just won't quit scandaling.

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claim over $2 billion but it's only available for a limited time. go to getrefunds.com, powered by innovation refunds. the spectacle that is george santos speaks for itself. this is not a partisan issue. but it is an issue that republicans need to handle. clean up your house. and you can start with george santos. >> but they won't. that was house democratic leader hakeem jeffries calling out his colleagues across the aisle where now six are demanding santos' resignation. speaker mccarthy continues to remain a key and staunch ally of the defiant disgraced congressman what said he would

resign only if all 142,000 voters who elected him based on his lies directly asked him to. now there are new questions about santos' potential campaign finance violations. "new york times" is reporting this about the funds that appeared to be raising money for his campaign. on october 21st, one donor sent $25,000 to a wells fargo bank account belonging to redstone strategies. three months later, where the donor's money went is unclear. the federal election commission said it had no evidence that redstone strategies was even registered a as political group and there do not appear to be any records documenting any of his donors, any of its contributions, of any of its spending. joining our conversation is former congresswoman and current msnbc contributor, donna edwards. donnie is still here. donna, i like what leaders jeffries said, that the santos scandal speaks for itself, but how do we reckon with a chamber being led by someone who not

only won't purge a liar at least five criminal probes, but shows no signs of sanctioning him, punishing him, doing anything about it. >> well, it may speak for itself, but not loudly enough for kevin mccarthy to hear it or for the republican leadership. you know, i was always kind of an institutionalist, making sure that members behave in a way that gives credit to the institution. that's one of the ethical responsibilities. kevin mccarthy knows this, but he's not going to do anything about it. and frankly, as long as george santos continues as a member of congress, this scandal will follow him and the republican leadership, especially kevin mccarthy, for every single day. because reporters aren't going to let up on it and nor should they, because what's been detailed, especially today, the multiple campaign finance

violations, the outright lying to get yourself a seat into the house of representatives in the first place, it's reprehensible that in the face of all of this, that kevin mccarthy refuses to do anything about it. so, no, none of us inside or outside should let them off the hook. we should be raising this every day that george santos brings discredit to the united states congress, though it could be discredited anymore by the republican party, but it will continue to follow them. >> you know, it is the natural extension, donnie, of when you have no standards, when there are no consequence for being marjory taylor green or matt gaetz, an alleged child sex trafficker, or paul gosar, who is so dangerous that his family comes on this program to warn everybody about him, but it is clear now it's not lost on the voters. they rejected republicans in part because of the

santosifcation. >> the democrats' problem was for a while, it was the squad. they were able to shorthand. look at the democrats and the squad, they're so extreme, what not. the names you just rifled off, in addition to kevin mccarthy, the soulless leader right there. and if you have an out and out proven liar in george santos, you get to continually paint the entire republican legislative body that way. so let him stay there. let this be a story that goes on -- that's how stupid kevin mccarthy is. the points he can win by saying, we have integrity. what do you gain by protecting him, other than continually setting yourself up for the branding exercise i just laid out. >> i think i'm like you, the institutionalist that's so uncomfortable. i know donnie's right on the politics of it, but it makes me clench, the idea of just having him there. but i guess the other side of it is how do you further dishonor

this body? >> you know, i am just so undone by having george santos as a member of a body that i served in. and i think that every other member of congress probably feels -- i know on the democratic side, feels that way. i know there are republicans clearly who do because they have expressed that. and i get the politics of having him there, but as it is now, the american public, you know, doesn't rate members of congress or congress on the high order of things. i think some place below used car salespeople. so the institution doesn't need anymore discrediting. look, i served on the ethics committee. i think the we works in a really slow process, but it doesn't have to. it can work more quickly to bring a resolution to the floor, to expel george santos from congress, should he choose not to resign, or should kevin mccarthy not demand that. and i think that the committee

should work expeditiously on this, but more than that, no member should sign on to due 'do legislation with him, should sit in a picture with him, should want to be associated with him, because he is a complete discredit and sorry for the voters in his congressional district, that they voted on somebody, they voted for someone who lied their way about every single aspect of who they are and who may have violated the law in addition to doing that. and shame on kevin mccarthy for continuing this absurdity of having this guy as a member of congress. it's embarrassing. >> i want to make a turn to the human pathology of someone who lies like this. i have to sneak in a quick break. don't go anywhere. that's on the other side. break. don't go anywhere. that's on the other side

love you. have a good day, behave yourself. like she goes to work at three in the afternoon and sometimes gets off at midnight. she works a lot, a whole lot. we don't get to eat in the early morning. we just wait till we get to the school.

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then how does a $0 monthly plan premium sound? ooooooooh! [laughs] if you're new to medicare, call 1-888-65-aetna. we'll walk you through all your coverage and benefit options to help find the right plan for you. we're back with donna and donny. donny, i felt many news cycles during the trump years, i wanted to understand the pathology of narcissism. with gaetz understand this projection. with santos, it's next level, though. he has lied about everything. what is that? you always wonder what is going on in people's minds. he got motivation, inspiration from fearless leader. >> trump? >> yes. he built his platform on so many lies and made 467,000 lies. >> he stopped counting by the

end. >> so basically, if you're aspiring young wide-eyed politician, hey, that's a currency. i can use that. and he did use it. somehow things didn't stick to trump. it looks like they're sticking to santos. >> it is an important distinction, though, when you sort of do damage assessment or the political carnage of the trump era. the fact checkers are mostly out of business. they don't bother with a lot of this because 40% of the country doesn't care. >> look, we will be i think a complete generation before we recover from the assault on truth. we'll never quite get back there, mostly because of social media and things like that. but this is now a currency that the republicans have just said we don't have to answer to anything. it doesn't matter if it's this videotape. you saw mccarthy. you saw everything he did post january 6th. there is no -- there is no accountability for truth, particularly on that side of the isle. george santos is the living puppet of that. >> and donna, the consequences of politics aren't great for

republicans. they control one thing and barely, and that's the house. but it does create an extraordinary sort of asymmetry if you will in terms democrats still care about that. the voters know they do, and they hold themselves to a higher standard. >> well, they do. and i think democrats in a minute, in a heartbeat would be calling for george santos to resign. the leader of the party would have called george santos in to his or her office and said you've got to go, and you've got to go now. the caucus would have ostracized him, and we just don't see that in a large scale among republicans. and i think that donny is right that we are going to go through a generation of these people having infected our democratic institutions both at the state level where they've been elected, at the local level, and of course in congress. and so we are going to have to live with this. but those of us who really

believe in our institutions and believe in our system have to stand up and call it out every single time, whether the american public is ready and willing to hear it or not, because they certainly won't be able to hear it if we're not calling it. >> donna edwards and donny deutsch, thank you for having this conversation rooted in truth and facts with us. our audience still cares. up next for us here, some extraordinary new reporting on john kelly's tenure in the trump white house and how close we actually came to nuclear catastrophe. a very short break for us. don't go anywhere. nywhere.

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the united states has great strength and patience. but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy north korea. rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. the united states is ready, willing, and able, but hopefully, this will not be necessary. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. i remember coming on the air that day and thinking for the first time that there was a decent chance trump really was going to get all of us killed. it was an extraordinary plot twist when months later trump pivoted completely off that saber rattling and little rocketman attacks, and instead became a long distance romance letter writer with one of the world's most cruel dictators. he would go on to travel to

north korea and meet with kim jong-un and the dnc. it was never clear what exactly caused such an abrupt face from someone who would rather thelma & louise the country he ran than ever acknowledge a mistake or lack of comprehension about a complex and fraught national security issue. but now thanks to an incredible new body of reporting on the tenure of john kelly as white house chief of staff, we now know that john kelly shared those fears about trump marching the world toward nuclear calamity. we also learned from this brand-new reporting that the about face on trump's part was essentially a ploy carried out by john kelly to manipulate a sitting president to pivot from warmongering to deal-making with the goal of averting war. mike schmidt, author of donald trump versu t white house's process deficiencies and trump's character issues more than north korea. as kelly was becoming chief of

staff, trump and kim are exchanging language publicly about using force that kelly had never seen an american leader and an adversary use. trump seemed to be treating kim like he was just another republican candidate whom trump belittled and attacked during the run for the party's nomination in 2016. the heated language meant the margin for error was incredibly small and just one missed signal or spark could set off a conflict that could easily kill tens of thousands of people within the span of a few hours." kelly would work for weeks within the new white house policy process he optimistically tried to put into place, to no effect. in fact, trump's public and private rhetoric escalated, even as kelly was tutoring trump on the numbers of lives that could be lost on the korean peninsula. schmidt reports this, quote, the white house chief of staff was coming to the realization that his boss, the president of the united states might be just as volatile, irrational and unpredictable as the north

korean dictator who ran his country like a prison camp. there are two people here with tremendous egos, and both have to come out of this winning, kelly said. quote, if one of them feels like they lost, we have a problem. what happened next may very well have averted war between these two unstable leaders. it's where we start the day with the author of "donald trump versus the united states: inside the struggle to stop the president." mike schmidt, also a "new york times" washington correspondent and a msnbc national security contributor is with us. also joining the conversation jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the department of defense and the cia and retired four-char general, supreme allied nato commander. he is now msnbc chief international security analyst. take us to your reporting on john kelly's tenure. >> just to explain what this is, with the paperback of my book coming out, i did something unusual. i've written a 12,000 word

biography of kelly. and it basically tells the story of a man who came in to be donald trump's chief of staff in the middle of 2017, and kelly thought that trump's problems were the fact that he didn't have a great process around him. he needed for the staff to be able to get him the right information so he could make the right decisions, and that he could bring that process to the table. but what kelly comes in within hours of not days he realizes that the problem is not just that there is not process, but the problem is trump, and that trump was far more limited, he was dumber than kelly thought he was, he was more immoral than kelly thought he was. i later learned that kelly told someone that he said "i didn't know they made people like that." so he is confronting trump, and he is realizing, oh, man, if i thought it was a problem before,

and kelly did think it was problem before, this is an even bigger problem. and kelly thought it was his job to basically stand between trump and the abyss and to try and keep trump on the tracks. and while he's realizing this, the biggest problem that kelly can sense is north korea. a week after kelly comes in is when trump says "fire and fury." trump's public rhetoric is out of control. and you have to remember, who is john kelly? he is a four-star marine general who studied war. he fought on the battlefield in iraq. he knows and from history that war can be set off very easily through mixed signals and everything, and here you have trump basically publicly goading kim into war. and what kim -- what kelly is afraid is that kim, in hopes of staying in power, does something like launch a missile that the united states has to shoot down and has to respond to.

and all of the sudden, we're spiraling out of control to war because of the missed signals between the two of them. and trump would not go along when kelly said look, there are hundreds of thousands of people that could die. trump didn't understand that. when kelly would say this could destroy the economy, something he thought would appeal to trump's, you know, love of his own good economy, trump didn't appreciate that. it was only when kelly in these one-on-ones with trump said look, why don't you become his friend? no one in american history has done that. you say all this stuff about what a great deal maker you are, why don't you try and do that? and kelly knew that that wouldn't lead to a denuclearized north korea, but he knew it would ratchet back the public and private rhetoric coming out of trump's mouth that could easily spin out of control. >> one of the pivot points in

your new reporting is this indifference when he's briefing him on the consequences. he is explaining how this escalates. and it's the indifference to death that i've never seen so starkly. we knew that trump had indifference to suffering in the spiked wall he wanted at the southern border and the nukes he wanted shot into mexico. but the indifference in your telling of kelly's efforts to educate him on the horrors and the heinous nature of war feels like an inflection point for kelly. >> look, no person understood the horrors of war maybe in the senior ranks of the u.s. merica military officer to lose a child in the post-9/11 wars. and he's trying to explain to trump what this could look like, what a dmz with north and south korea firing on each other could look like, how this could all spin into ways that could lead to missiles flying all over the place.

and it didn't work to connect to trump. he couldn't connect to trump that way. it was only through kelly saying to trump you can be the deal maker. go all the way back to eisenhower. no one has done this. you can do this. and trump goes along with it. it has been one of these mysteries of the trump administration why was there such an about-face between the rhetoric and the love letters. and this is part of it. there are probably parts of this story that we don't know, other parts of how this idea came to pass. but it's in these one-on-one conversations. and john kelly spent hours and hours with donald trump in 2017, in 2018 trying to deal with this issue, because kelly thought it was the biggest problem that may come to bear. >> in your reporting, these aren't pleasant chats. trump is abusive. he snaps at kelly, and kelly says you stop or i'm out of here. and you report out that trump was so angry that kelly wasn't, quote, more like the germans.

explain. >> and this is something that's come up in other reporting before. but trump did not understand that the generals were not going to be loyal to him. if anything, and this is i think one of the reasons we've never really heard publicly from john kelly, john kelly takes very seriously the divide between the military and the civilian. and he took an oath to the constitution, and he was going to be loyal to the constitution. trump had no comprehension of this. he thought that the generals should just be loyal to him. he brings up this thing. he says why aren't you loyal like the german generals. and kelly knowing german history you talking first world war or second world war? it was clear to kelly that trump was talking about the second. to kelly, trump is talking about nazi germany inciting the generals. kelly says well, the generals tried to kill hitler. and kelly has the facts and trump doesn't have any way to respond to it. that's one example of how kelly found trump so limited.

kelly was surprised by how little trump knew and how much trump talked about things like he knew what he was doing. and i think that from kelly's mind-set, he was going to take as much pain as possible. he was going to endure working for donald trump as long as he could and as long as donald trump would keep him there. and that was 18 months. and he did that all the way through the end of 2018. and in an important part of the story is, look, the first two years of donald trump's presidency did not go well. there are a lot of things that went wrong there. but there is a different tenor between '17 and '18, and '19 and '20. he is impeached in '19 and we all remember what happens into 2021. an unbound trump, let trump be trump. kelly walks out the door. he says to trump, don't pick a boot liquor. pick someone that is going to keep you in line. and in came the next chief of staff, who wanted to let trump be trump.

>> mick mulvaney. toward the end, when kelly is nearing his breaking point, they're on a plane to paris, france. and trump goes back on hitler and says hitler did some good things. what was the fixation with hitler? >> i'm not sure. i think there may have been something about trump's father and trump's father's heritage. this is a part where i should have maggie next to me to help explain this. but i don't know a lot about trump's history in terms of that. but it was something i think that the people around trump thought was tied to his father. and his father being, you know, there is some sort of thing there and glorification of germany in his view. and we know from other reporting that trump had glorified northern europe. he wanted there to be more people that came into the united states from northern europe and not other parts of the world. >> jeremy bash, i want your

thoughts on all of it. but this thing on germany isn't angela merkel's germany. it isn't germany of the first world war. it is specifically hitler. here it is. "on the flight to france on air force one, trump showed his lack of basic knowledge about world history. who were the good guys in world war i, asked kelly by any definition we were the good guys. any time you have a question about who the good guys are, if we're in the war, we're with the good guys. well, trump responded, hitler did a lot of good things. trump attempted to convince kelly of his reading of history. germany he told kelly was only able to gain economic dominance in europe because of hitler. these meetings with neo-nazi adjacent folks are not one-offs. this is a world view that donald trump held and holds, jeremy. >> absolutely. and if you look at some of the people who attack the capitol on january 6th, they wore t-shirts that said "camp auschwitz" and

"six million wasn't enough." so this fascination and fetish with germany playing footsie with neo-nazis, praising hitler, this is outrageous. it's not only anti-semitic, it's anti-american and it's ignorant of history and it's fundamentally dangerous. i think mike's reporting about john kelly, who i had the pleasure of working with in the pentagon and jim stavridis also worked closely, the u.s. commander of u.s. southern command. those of white house worked with john kelly know he is highly credible, highly serious, and thank god he was there. i say thank god that he was there many times. thank good he was there in the oval office, because as this new reporting shows, trump wanted to be more authoritarian than the ultimate authoritarian in kim jong-un. he nearly took us to the brink of nuclear war. in 2017, north korea flight tested two icbms that could hit the united states. they have 30 to 50 weapons worth

of nuclear material. so the minute we launch a nuclear weapon to north korea, they're launching back at us. we have 100,000 dead. it's war on the korean peninsula and potentially world war iii. john kelly, if he manipulated donald trump into going for the bromance, which i think yielded very little, at least it was not war, and it also just goes to show you how easily manipulatable the president of the united states, the commander in chief in fact was. >> right. to people who weren't trying to avoid a world war. jeremy, i want to follow up with you. i remember being on the "today" show after one of those north korean missile tests. and i think one of the assumptions we made is even donald trump didn't want death and destruction. what the new reporting reveals is trump was not swayed by the assessment you just gave, by the things that were being said on television. that if there is war, there would be thousands, millions of lives lost on the korean peninsula. our institutions aren't made for

someone like that from within. and i wonder what your thoughts railroad r as this sort of sinks in how close we came. >> under our system again, jim stavridis knows this better than anyone. in our system, the president of the united states gives the command to deploy nuclear weapons. nobody else does that. that power is vested solely with the occupant of the oval office. and there are no institutions to stop that, unfortunately. and in donald trump's case, it shows you just how close we came to the brink of military conflict there. and in many other places. and i believe fundamentally that eraticism, that ignorance of history, that acknowledgment by world leaders that anything could happen in the oval office, that is a very dangerous moment. what we want to transmit is clarity, determination, a clear-eyed resolute approach to solving the world's problems. sometimes you have to use military power. sometimes you have to use deterrents. more often than not, you want to de-escalate, deter and diffuse. >> i saved these two for you. let me read this to you.

"it was raining and trump told kelly he didn't want to go." this was to a service honoring veterans of the first world war. "he didn't want his hair to be ruined, and he didn't understand why he would visit a memorial site for troops who had been killed." quote, they lost said telly, they're losers, suckers in the war, trump said. these guys are losers. i like people who win. kelly had lost a son in battle and was angered by trump's suggestion that sacrificing one's life in war somehow made a service member anything less than heroic. your reaction. >> heartbreaking, to think that a commander in chief would have a shred of the kind of thinking that michael's superb reporting has uncovered. look, i've known john kelly for over 40 years. we banged around together as junior officers on an aircraft carrier.

he was the captain of marines. i was in charge of the boilers, driving the ship through the ocean. i know john kelly in all his dimensions. i watched him go through the heart-wrenching loss of his son in combat in afghanistan. he is an extraordinary leader, and in every sense that he stood for the country for 18 months and held the dam against a president who didn't understand the first thing about history, about sacrifice, about what his military was all about. and, again, as i read this addition to michael's book about john kelly, it rang so true, not only in john kelly, but also in my own experiences being interviewed by donald trump for a cabinet position. i did not pursue that. john kelly chose to. i'm glad that he did. i don't envy him the 18 months he spent there.

>> you probably know this already. i didn't, but i want the read this part of mike's reporting. quote, you were medically disqualified, the doctor told kelly. to kelly this was terrible news. you have to qualify me, kelly said. if your eyesight didn't disqualify you, your bone spurs would, the doctor said. what are bone spurs, kelly asked? kelly could literally feel his heart sink as his life-long dream of being in the marines appeared to be crashing down before him. he protested with the doctor who apparently seeing kelly's interest in knowing that the military needed as many service members as possible for the war in vietnam decided to ignore kelly's health issues. quote, army or marines, the doctor asked? marines, kelly replied. he left for boot camp within a week. kelly's career starts on the exact polar opposite side of the bone spurs question than donald trump's. irony, fate, what do you make of that?

>> in the end, it's a tale of two bone spurs. and certainly what we ought to do is find out who that doctor was that gave kelly the pass and name a destroyer after him in the u.s. navy in homage. you know, john kelly has proven again and again and again he rises to the occasion. and when you look at donald trump, who took your point, the exact opposite course facing perhaps even whether those were real or not, we'll never know, i suppose. but what i know with every bit of my being is that john kelly will always do the right thing for the nation, put the nation ahead of himself. and when he was standing on that wall for us, facing donald trump, yes, we were in my view a great deal of danger, and he used all of his skills, his

persuasiveness, his irish charm to move the needle with donald trump, to get into it a good position. as a nation, we dodged a bullet there. thank you, general kelly. >> jeremy bash and admiral james thank you. the rival between melania and ivanka trump and the challenges that relationship represented. plus, as house republicans vow to investigate hunter biden, federal prosecutors are navigating a very tricky and nuanced case, one that is a long way from the narrative endlessly pushed by the right. and later in the show, we'll tell you all about first big voting rights fight of 2023, now under way in a key battleground state. marc elias will join us. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. t go anywhere. , getrefunds.com can see if it may qualify for a payroll tax refund of up to $26,000 per employee. all it takes is eight minutes to get started.

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you can't not be a racist for 69 years and then run for president and be a racist. and what i'll say is when a lot of the democrats call the president a racist, i think they're doing a disservice to people who suffer because of real racism in this country. >> was birtherism racist? >> um, look, i wasn't really involved in that. >> i know you weren't. was it racist? >> like i said, i wasn't involved in that. >> i know you weren't. was it racist? >> look, i know who the president is, and i've not seen anything in him that is racist. >> that racist thing over there, i didn't do that. i was only involved in this racism. that was former first son-in-law jared kushner getting hopelessly

tripped up by jonathan swan's super simple question. of course birtherism is racist. why does a story about john kelly's actual experience in the west wing coming out now isn't entirely clear, but it all comes to jared and ivanka and the dysfunctional dynamic created by trump's unqualified, unvetted and unmanageable kids. there is little left to the imagination in mike schmidt's telling and reporting as kelly's tenure after chief of staff. quote, another major issue was the ongoing competition between ivanka and melania trump. kelly had been told earlier in the presidency that ivanka had wanted to take over the title of first lady and assume many of the ceremonial roles that come with the title, following a similar model to the presidency of the unmarried james buchanan, who in the mid 19th century turned to his niece to fulfill the duties of the first lady. as if that father-daughter relationship were not creepy enough, from the forthcoming paper back of mike schmidt's

book "donald trump versus the united states." it's out next week featuring a profile of donald trump's longest serving chief of staff, john kelly, which is chock full of disturbing details. mike schmidt is back with us. also joining us miles teller, former chief of staff of the department of homeland security. also cofound other telephone political party forward. a fellow traveler with john kelly at dhs and in the trump administration. i want to come with you on jared and ivanka. some of your reporting is the most pointed i've seen of what the most senior official in the white house, someone with a cabinet rank thought of them. let me read this. "kelly thought ivanka was too focused on staying in the limelight and didn't come to work that much. he thought kushner was clearly intelligent but focused too much of his energy on altering american foreign policy to benefit israel. it seemed as if he worked day and night to do whatever the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu wanted, as if he were an israeli acting in the best interests of that country, not

the united states." it sounds like kelly thought jared was an israeli agent? >> i don't know if an agent, but he -- jared spent a lot of his time on two things. one was israel and what the israelis wanted, and the other was meeting with arab countries with the idea of trying to make middle east peace. but i think for kelly and the other folks at the top of the white house, and what they didn't understand was why to kelly was jared only meeting with the wealthy gulf nations. if you're trying to make peace in the middle east, why was he spending so much time with the wealthy gulf countries and not all the other ones. i am pretty sure that kelly didn't think that jared should even be in the government, let alone have a security clearance. i don't think he understood what ivanka did.

and their relationship really blew up over the security clearance where he would not give them the clearance, and trump had to order him to do that. and the white house had to create through don mcgahn documentation that showed that trump had overridden the recommendations of the intelligence community and of what kelly and mcgahn wanted. and i think he was deeply suspicious of -- of jared and ivanka. >> with good reason. they were working day in and day out to sabotage his efforts to bring order to the west wing, right? >> i mean, it starts -- it starts with trump telling him, kelly, when he comes in that he wanted kelly to fire them. and kelly's basically telling trump i'm not going to get involved in a family issue like this. and kelly wanted jared and ivanka to report to report to him like everyone else in the white house. but they didn't want to do that. they wanted to go around him.

and i think that's one of the things that kelly was never able to get a handle on. >> miles, there is so much to unpack. most of us abandoned sort of the father-daughter thing after the last father-daughter dances in elementary and middle school. she wanted to be the first lady. eww. >> yeah, on top of that, nicolle, i think that chief kelly found the relationship to be creepy, for want of another word. and i'll defer to the chief to speak to those anecdotes, but i remember vividly when he left dhs as secretary and went over to the white house, one of the very fist things i heard back once they were in the chief of staff's office is that a president basically sexualized his daughter. and i don't say that lightly. but that was very uncomfortable from the get-go for people like kelly and nielsen to see the way trump talked about his own family. and in addition to that, he was empowering them into roles that

circumvented real senate authorized cabinet roles. so less so ivanka and more so jared. the big problem became for kelly and the rest of us during that time period is that the president would essentially empower jared to become his own multicabinet secretary. one day he was the secretary of agriculture. the next day he was secretary of state, and the decisions jared made didn't get sent to those departments and agencies. so you would find out, for instance, that he was going and conducting shadow diplomacy in somewhere like mexico, when we were doing actual overt diplomacy with someone like the mexican government. and i remember one day, for instance, in the oval office, the president telling jared that he was in charge of immigration now and relations with mexico. kelly was so furious, he went back to the chief of staff's office, called jared and said i guess you're in charge now, jared, fu, and hung up the phone and went home for the day and left. i was worried that kelly was

going to resign that day. but kelly had a very good reason for making that point. if the president is going to randomly assign people to take over the duty of other cabinet secretaries, the government will not function. and this shouldn't have been something on the chief of staff's plate. he shouldn't have had to constantly work between the president and his own family members. that shouldn't have been an issue. instead, it was constantly an issue and it disrupted the functions of government. >> miles, the nations that jared dealt with, perhaps coincidentally turned out to be the biggest donors to his fund. it's mbs' kingdom of saudi arabia, and i believe the emirates is the other one that kelly noted he spent a whole lot of time working with. let's not beat around the bush. it is clear that he was both carrying out foreign policy in kelly's view that seemed to be focused, quote, too much on what israel wanted and specifically netanyahu. but also on lining his pockets

for the post presidency. is it a lack of imagination, it a failure of policy and politics that there is no mechanism to hold jared kushner accountable? >> well, it's also a lack of transparency, nicolle. to this day, we still don't know what foreign policy was conducted through the jared kushner office. he had a little tiny office about the size of a closet in the west wing, and i know for a fact that jared conducted diplomacy from whatsapp on his iphone. what happened in those conversation? what did he tell world leaders that the secretary of state didn't or the secretary of homeland security didn't. we don't know. and that's what's really dangerous, that lack of transparency. i can tell you, for instance, when jamal khashoggi was murdered allegedly at the behest of saudi leadership, jared swung by one day and saw us and said, well, you know, you've got to see it the saudis' way.

they live in a very dangerous neighborhood. and he intimated that he'd been messaging with the crown prince on whatsapp. so here you have the whole u.s. federal government saying the saudis might be complicit in the murder of a u.s. person, working to develop policy options for the president to hold them accountable, and his son is conducting a parallel track side diplomacy with the crown prince and defending his actions. that was extremely worrisome. i have no doubt it affected the trajectory of u.s. foreign policy in that time period in addition to potentially benefitting people financially after the fact. but because we don't have transparency about what happened then, we don't know whether these financial transactions have any tie to official actions that were taken in that time. >> my last question for you, why is this coming out now? why are kelly's experiences something that you're able to report out now that maybe earlier were not able to be learned? >> it took an enormous amount of

time. kelly is yet to speak out publicly in a way. he's not someone that's on television. he's not someone that got involved in the 2020 campaign. he's also someone that robert mueller never spent an extraordinary amount of time with. he was never called to testify at the first impeachment or even the january 6th investigation. >> why not? >> i don't know. kelly has sort of fallen into these cracks between these different -- different investigations and impeachments. and some point somewhere, someone will have him testify, and my guess is that in a forum like that, he would be willing to speak. like i said, he is a retired four-star marine general who sees that divide between the military and civilian as one of the most important things in his life. and i think he's allergic to anything that he thinks is

political. and i realize that has not satisfied many people who have wanted him to speak out more. but my guess is if anyone were ever to get to kelly, and they got to him and said well, why haven't you said this? he may say something like well, what else do you need to know about donald trump? if your mind has not been made up about donald trump based on what we know, i'm not sure what i could add to this. and i think kelly saw his job in service in doing what he did to try and keep trump on the tracks as much as possible and was willing to walk away and go off and spend, you know, his time talking to law enforcement and military groups around the country. i think that's sort of who he is. >> amazing new body of reporting. the paperbook version of mike's book, "donald trump v the united states" will be out next week.

miles, thank you for sticking around and being part of this conversation. when we come back, with house republicans vowing to investigate the president's son hunter biden, a closer look at his complicated story shows how fundamentally different the truth is from the narrative being pushed by the right that new narrative is next. ♪ music (“i swear”) plays ♪ jaycee tried gain flings for the first time the other day... and forgot where she was. [buzz] you can always spot a first timer. gain flings with oxi boost and febreze.

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rolling our eyes. when the words hunter biden come roaring out of the house republicans. after all, the republican party, along with their allies and n the right wing media have obsessed over the president's son for years now. seeking to fashion him as a real bogeyman at the center of a long-running international effort to help his father profit the newly republican house of e. representatives has made a top agenda item investigating the conspiracy theories around hunter biden. the oversight committee on wednesday demanded that the treasury department hand over information having to do with the biden family's finances and they're expected to hold hearings on this very topic as well. "the new york times" is out today in a front page above the fold story that offers some important context and nuance. the story is titled "hunter biden's tangled tale comes front and center". from that new reporting, quote, the real hunter biden story is complex and very different in

important ways from the narrative provided by republicans, but troubling in its own way. he is sober now and no longer entangled in foreign business deals. he is a visible presence in his father's life. his oldest daughter was married at the white house in november, and he attended a state dinner last month. but his travails remain front and center in washington in both ways legal and political. mike schmidt is still with us. joining our conversation is maya wiley, former assistant u.s. attorney, now the president of a leadership conference on civil and human rights. mike, this is a very sort of sensitive look at how tragedy and addiction have also dotted the lines between these investigations into him. explain. >> well i think that what we were trying to do is say look, hunter biden is someone who is in the news a lot, but most people don't know why or how we got to this point. what the story tries to do is says look, there is a narrative out there pushed by republicans that basically joe biden was at

the center of this money making enterprise with hunter biden. that's not true. we can't find anything to substantiate that. but the story of hunter biden, nevertheless, is a troubling -- is a troubling story. he did things, engaged in foreign deals that raised concerns for the people around biden that hunter was trying to profit on his family name. and in doing that, he created political exposure for himself and his father, and he helped lay the seeds for that. but that is not -- there is -- as the vice president's son, he could have done that. there is nothing illegal for doing that. people have -- used the appearance of access to power in washington as something going back forever. so that may look unsavory, but it's not illegal. and the second most important

takeaway from this is that the justice department has looked all of this stuff. and the charges that they would potentially bring are not related to the heart of the accusations that the republicans made. they're smaller and narrower. they're on his tax filings for 2016 and 2017 and whether he lied on a document when he purchased a gun in 2018, whether he was addicted to drugs or not at the time. so the republicans who have made all these accusations about hunter biden, even if the justice department brings the charges criminally that they're considering, and hunter biden's lawyers have made the argument to the government basically that other people in this situation have been dealt with civilly and not dealt with criminally. but if those charges were brought, the republicans are not going to be satisfied at all. they're going to say holy cow,

there is all this other stuff that you missed. and what we did in the story is try to say look, this is how hunter biden got into this situation that he's in today. >> you know, maya, so many thoughts. jared was believed to have been working more fervently on israel's foreign policy than america's. and that's not on the agenda for the republican congress to investigate. ivanka wanted to be named america's first lady. i don't remember anyone at a minimum grossed out as a maximum concerned about the ethics of that. the secret service stayed at trump properties all over the world. this is about conflicts. this is about dehumanizing and politicizing not one of president biden's kids, but two. ashley biden was in the far right ecosystem when a diary of hers with us stole listen and politicized. this is about dehumanizing and politicizing the biden family. do you think the defense against

it is adequately robust? >> i think the defense against it is very robust when you look at the facts, right. and that's what mike is talking about. because, you know, what we're seeing here to your point, nicolle, is not a process that's about the people's business, but really about political payback. if this were an oversight hearing that was trying to identify whether there should be law making to create conflicts of interest protections against the family members of sitting presidents, engaging with foreign government or businesses with connections to foreign governments, we'd be hearing about jeb bush, neil bush and china connections when jeb bush was running for president. we'd be hearing about also ivanka. we'd be talking about what happened with jared kushner getting billions of dollars from saudis after leaving office after all these quiet whatsapp exchanges and protecting what

appears to be protecting human rights violations. i think the issue here is there a role for congressional oversight where it leads to the ability to create new laws and policies that protect democracy, that protect our confidence in government? absolutely. but that's not what they're talking about. and frankly, frankly, we should remember that a lot of this story and the politics of it started with peter schweizer's book, and that peter schweizer actually admitted himself i don't see a crime here. i just don't think it looks good. and if the issue is whether it's okay or not, the focus should be on whether or not we need new laws and policies that protect us. that would be legitimate. this is not. >> the republicans don't mind when republicans seem to cross those norms. mike schmidt, thank you for spending some time with us on your book and reporting. maya sticks around.

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photo i.d. it limits drop boxes and requiring mail-in ballots to arrive within four days of the election instead of ten. our next guest is fighting hard to stop the disenfranchisement of ohio's voters, viling a lawsuit to stop the bill just hours after it was signed into law, saying the measures impose burdens on young, elderly, and black voter in the state along with military members and ohioens living abroad. let's bring in mark elias. mark, you don't have a slow season. and i wonder if republicans didn't see their big wave they're looking for new, novel, more aggressive ways to limit access to drop boxes and these means often used in the old days by republicans but these days by people who tend to vote democratic. does one plus one equal two? >> yeah, and thank you for having me on, because i think it's important for people to realize that all of the time and

attention people focus on voter suppression and election subversion in the months leading up to election are not the only time that this is going on. this is going on day in, day out, year in, year out, whether there is something else dominating the news or not. there is a battle for whether we are going to have an inclusive democracy or whether we're going to exclude people from democracy, and as legislative sessions begin now in states around the country, we are going to see new, more creative ways by republican legislatures to make voting harder, particularly targeting black, brown, and young voters. ohio was just the first of what is to come. >> mark, when you watch the images out of brazil and see now that the trump republican forty is exporting insurrection and election denialism, what goes through your mind? >> i am glad we dodged a bullet

in 2022, and i am fearful for what we will have in 2024. you know, the big lie may have originated with trump, but as you point out, it has now been exported internationally. it is now part of the ethos of a large segment of the right wing of this country. we avoided violence after the election in 2022, but remember those images, and please have seared into your memory those images of armed vigilantes staking out drop boxes in arizona in tactical gear. that could have turned violent if not for the good work of lawyers and organizations to put that in check early. when i look at brazil, this is continuing to be an anti-democratic movement in this country that is now spreading internationally. >> what special sort of alerts

do you have? i mean, i know you're watching the states where republican still control the legislature and the governorship, but just take us through what your hot spots were this week. >> so look, the hot spot of the week probably is ohio, because they passed a new law that does five things -- it tightens the i.d. requirement. ohio already had an i.d. requirement. this makes it harder for people to vote. they shortened the president that people can fix their ballots if there's an error that's called to their attention. they made it -- shortened the time period for people to get their absentee ballots returned, which by the way, largely affects our military men and women overseas, so they sort of targeted the military in their effort. they limited drop boxes, which remains a republican war on secure metal containers. and they eliminated a day of early voting by removing the monday before election day.

i was on your show when georgia tried to remove a day of early vote in the georgia senate runoff, the saturday after thanksgiving. and when we went to court and run, the results for pretty extraordinary -- 70,000 georgiaens voted on that and a majority of them were black voter on that monday. if when you look at what they're trying to do in ohio, they're trying to replicate the worst of the republican legislatures around the country. that's probably top on my list. i don't know if you saw in wisconsin, there's a republican elected official there who -- an appointed official who took cred for suppressing black voters in milwaukee. so we're seeing lots of different ways this is playing out. >> mark, thank you for spending time with us. we'll never tire of this conversation. please come back early and often. maya, i want to give you the last word on this, because it feels like we want to be so relieved that the bullet was dodged for democracy in

november, but there's so much work. we cannot let our foot off the gas at all. what does that work look like, and would you like to see it done more vigorously? >> we need everybody -- every single body fighting for voting rights right now in local communities and states and at the federal level. what we're seeing, mark is exactly right -- it was robert spindell from wisconsin who managed elections and was a fake elector bragging about suppressing the black vote in milwaukee just this past november. but i want to remind everyone this other point -- this was florida in 2012 when jim greer, who headed the republican party said outloud that this would help republicans win if they suppressed the black vote. so it is not new. we have been watching the supreme court and are continuing to watch the supreme court potentially take away the tools that allow us to call out racism where it happens, that allow us

to call out fix the voter suppression. so what we have to do is exactly what mark's doing right now -- challenge in every state as they try to do it. but at the same time, we at the leadership conference for human rights working in a coalition of over 100 national groups on these issues to say to voters, particularly voter of color, particularly to the elderly, to the young, the people with disabilities, the power we have as people is to demand that we show up at the polls and pick our leaders. that's our power. that's how we make the poliies we need to get what our families need, and when they try to take it away from us, it's because we have power. so it's this we're trying to convince people -- show up any way. don't let them make it hard, and make sure everyone knows how to vote lawfully so that even when they do these shenanigans to make it hard, we say, we got a plan to make sure you can get there, you can vote.

just like folks did in selma, just like we have been doing for decades as black people, but people in general, because it does affect everyone. >> it's just not a sign of a healthy democracy that we have to, but we'll pick up that conversation another day. thank you very much for spending time with us. another quick break. we'll be right back. ith us another quick break. we'll be right back. ower my glu? with the freestyle libre 2 system, you can know where your glucose level is and where it's headed without fingersticks. know what activities work for you. manage your diabetes with more confidence and lower your a1c. ask your doctor about the freestyle libre 2 system. it's covered by medicare for those who qualify. visit freestylelibre.us/medicare to learn more. ♪♪ your heart is the beat of life. if you have heart failure, entrust your heart to entresto. entresto helps improve your heart's ability to pump blood to the body. don't take entresto if pregnant; it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. don't take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren,

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