the justice department really wants to distance itself from that and make sure that doesn't happen again. >> is that chris wray saying he would not have opened the investigation? we only have a couple seconds left. is that how you read it? >> i wouldn't say that. he thinks there were steps not taken there should have been more care taken and use of things like the steele dossier that should never have happened. >> thank you very much. we're going to be hearing about this again, no doubt. that's it for me today, though. "deadline white house" starts right now. hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. for years now, the durham probe has loomed large on the right, part delusional fantasy, part hobby horse for the right, a fulfillment of the disgraced

twice impeached once indictment ex-president and his loyal attorney general's pledge to investigate the investigators. it was a flashing red warning sign, though, of the politization of the trump era justice department. now, after an investigation that lasted four years, twice as long as the russia probe, it was initially set up to investigate, special counsel john durham has released a final report. it's more than 400 pages long. our team of experts and reporters are combing through it. but the probe's many failures and contradictions and chaos that surrounded it have been reported on and they are out there for everyone to see including high-level resignations. john durham is not today bringing any new charges. he's lost both of the cases that he decided to bring to trial. that's why some of the people at the highest levels of that probe left. the probe's stunning clashes and ethical lapses and internal chaos have been documented and

detailed in an extraordinary body of reporting in "new york times" this year. it reads in part, quote, durham spent the first months looking for any evidence that the origin of the russia investigation involved an intelligence on targets the trump campaign. the team spent long hours combing the cia files and found no way to support the allegation. barr and durham traveled to press british, and it yan officials to reveal everything their agencies had gleaned about the trump campaign and relayed to the u.s., but both allied governments denied they had done any such thing. the "times" reported that probe uncovered evidence of potential criminal wrongdoing but none other than donald j. trump. from the "times" on one of barr and durham's trips to europe, there were more than one, according to people familiar with the matter, italian officials, denying any role in setting off the russia investigation, unexpectedly offered a potentially explosive

tip linking trump to certain suspected financial crimes. barr and durham decided that the tip was too serious and too credible to ignore. rather than assign it to another prosecutor barr had durham investigate the matter giving him criminal prosecution powers for the first time. even though the possible wrong doing by trump did not fall squarely within durham's assignment to scrutinize the origins of the russia inquiry people said. durham never filed any charges, and it remains unclear what level investigation it was, what steps he took, what he learned and whether anyone at the white house ever found out. the probe that trump promised would uncover, quote, the crime of the century, may have instead found evidence of donald trump committing more crimes. today's report, nbc news notes, quote, accuses the fbi of acting negligently by opening the

investigation based on insufficient information. in a sweeping 300 page report made public monday, it is likely to loom larger in politics than in law. i'm going to pause right here and keep reading nbc's reporting but do real-time fact checking. now that finding by mr. durham is contradicted by doj's own i.g. mr. horowitz in 2019 who found that investigation was opened, was predicated, it was necessary and then there was no bias. now nbc news goes on to report that durham finds that fbi made a series of mistakes, including one i just talked about, the decision to open the trump-russia probe not being justified. the end of donald trump and bill barr's term, request to investigate the justice department is where we begin with the clash being narratives. the durham report contradicts another inspector general report already in the public atmosphere and on the record.

joining us politico correspondent msnbc plittco correspondent betsy swann is here, had time to pore through the durham report. "new york times" reporter katie ben hamm, on the piece of times reporting that i quoted from. frank is here, former fbi assistant director of counterintelligence and with me at the table, legal analyst former fbi general counsel andrew weissmann. betsy, what's in here? >> one thing in the very beginning of the report that jumps out that almost seems like it could be directed at trump himself is a little bit of law school 101. in this part durham says essentially tries to lay out why he didn't bring more criminal charges. federal law doesn't make it illegal for people to have poor judgment. he says federal law doesn't make

it illegal for campaigns to engage in an unethical or uncomfortable campaign tactics, and he says that prosecutors have to make sure that if they're charging people with crimes, the charges are against criminal activity. what's implicit there is durham signaling while he found lots of information he believes to be interesting and important, so much of his findings simply did not rise to the level of criminality and that gets to one really important piece of putting this durham report in context, which is that it is likely to leave president trump, former president trump and his supporters disappointed. that's because trump spent the last four years saying durham was on the cusp of bringing bombshell criminal charges and that -- and then literally the first pages of this report we see an explanation from durham as to why that's not happening,

as why even though lots of people on the right were upset about what happened with the russia probe, durham concedes i wasn't able to bring charges for a host of reasons because a lot of things that people don't like, aren't illegal. >> what does he find? >> he finds -- one of the important glumtsz durham makes that people will be sussing out for a while is this argument of confirmation. it comes at the conclusion of the report. durham believes the fbi should have been much more skeptical about a lot of the information that was brought to it in those final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. durham says there should be a more adversarial process and fbi agents made assumptions, they followed their gut when it came to what they believed was happening with the trump campaign in russia and durham said there should have been more

pushback. he hones in on intelligence declassified by the trump administration where the u.s. intelligence community got intelligence from russia that was russian intelligence analysis, alleging that the clinton campaign had decided to push claims about trump and russia as a way of distracting the american public from her e-mail scandal and durham goes into this in detail. i have to say and durham says durham was not able to verify that was true. durham asked hillary clinton about that intelligence in the report, he talks about asking her about it and she says that's ridiculous. you have to go down every rabbit holep he asks jake sullivan about it. biden's national security adviser. he says that was ridiculous. durham takes this information that came from russia to a

number of fbi agents who worked on crossfire hurricane and durham says many agents were not aware of this intelligence and that they wish they had known about it when their investigation was under way. in particular, durham describes a scene with an fbi agent who was leading the crossfire hurricane probe, durham's team interviews this agent and shows him this intelligence that hillary clinton and jake sullivan say is ridiculous. the fbi agent looks at it, dismayed according to durham's report and becomes emotional and says he should have been aware of that intelligence even if it wasn't provably true, even if it wasn't verified, that agent wished he had known about it. and that kind of gets to a lot of what durham is looking at, which is not so much illegality but more these judgment calls, this context, was there enough of an adversarial process within the fbi where people checking their assumptions enough when it came to putting together the case against trump. in 300 pages i've spent time

going through, that's an important theme that comes out and part of the case that durham is making. was that enough to get to the point of substantiating the allegations trump and his allies made about the russia probe? very far from it. but it's a thread that clearly durham spent ap enormous amount of time and energy investigating, something important to him, putting forward in this investigation. >> another word for that is a conspiracy theory. andrew weissmann, manafort guilty or innocent? gates, guilty or know sent, mike flynn gillsy or innocent? he pled guilty so many times. >> admitted he was guilty, withdrew and said to the judge, falsely said i was guilty. >> papadopolous? >> guilty. >> not just me. it's either them out of their

own mouths or the jury. >> durham's whole thing is predicated on it's like a rabbit hole conspiracy that suggests that trump-barr paranoia infected his ability to stand back and evaluate whether the probe yielded guilty convictions of people who would have had nothing to do with any of these questions he looked at. it is a view from so far down the rabbit hole that what needs oversight is what mr. durham did that repelled his long-time prosecutorial partner, nora dennehy, and other prosecutors. >> "the new york times" as reported is nora dennehy resigned in protest saying that there was undue pressure by bill barr, that there were -- that they were taking reports at face value and they were not scrutinizing it correctly. the irony here is kind of palpable. i want to have people for a moment step back so they

understand how small the difference is in reality between durham and the ig. because it really isn't a question of -- >> let's back up and remind everybody, i tried to do this in real time, but an inspector general is an agency's own watchdog. the doj's inspector general the only one trump didn't fire. now you can theorize why that might be, but on the question of predication, for the russia probe, he found that it was absolutely appropriately predicated and that there was, quote, no bias. >> and so he found the inspector general that properly predicated called a full investigation. the difference between a full investigation and a preliminary you're now an fbi not law, these are internal doj rules. so we're talking about something that's not legal versus illegal. it's just did they follow a particular internal rules.

the i.g. says yes, they did, but he goes further. when he testifies about his report he is asked about john durham's conclusion they didn't have enough and says i was surprised by that and his concern was not with respect to opening, it was that he thought it would only be opened as a preliminary and agrees that there was enough facts for the fbi to open but sort of a smaller investigation and this is what the i.g. said. who cares. what they did pursuant to the larger investigation could have been done as the smaller investigation. they didn't break rules. the inspector general saying this is crickets. this is really a friend of mine from texas said, this is, you know, all hat no cattle. >> you were on the mueller probe. what was it like to know that for four years another one-time

peer, we should say mr. durham was at one time respected and regarded and did important work following the bush years to the war on terror policies, what was it like to have your probe investigated for four years? >> we were very aware as pete strzok and others, there was going to be an investigation of us, and our view of that was fine. if you know what you're doing, done in good faith and you're our view was fine. if you want to second-guess and make sure we did something, that's fine. what's unbelievable about john durham he brought two cases he lost he seemed to say it was okay as long as you have other story this is bill barr's argument.

that's what criminal cases are for. there was this rel lack of substance to what he was doing and when you have the i.g. already doing an investigation talk about like a total you know, talk about a witch hunt or sort of real wasted resources, you know, there are a lot of things to investigate and a lot of things that can be useful in government. if john durham was just doing an investigation to talk about what are better policies and practices that fbi could have and depoliticizing it, i would have been for that and said great. no agency that can't use greater scrutiny. this was trying to say that there's a there, there when there's no, there there. so i just think the big picture if you step back is, for those people who think oh, everybody does it, the democrats do it, republicans do it, everybody is up to no good, there really is just -- that's not true. there is a false equivalency

because you have an enormous number of cases which were proved where you pointed out convictions, where there is a there, there. russia interfered in the 2016 election and continuing to interfere. there are people who have gone to jail who are rightly found guilty and what you have with john durham is a big fat nothing, and it reminds me of sort of weaponization hearings that are going on where there is just falling flat on their face because there is no, there there. >> what is the chance, i got my first hard copy of the first 85 pages, what is the chance that in these 400 pages there's any information about what there was evidence of criminal wrongdoing for and that was donald trump? >> so like as we talked about just before we went on air, i'm fascinated to know what is it that italy reported. you have a foreign country much to their sort of, you know, not

in their interest to be saying i'm about to tell you something that could get very powerful people in our country very upset with us, but here is the information. i'm going to be fascinated to see whether john durham addresses that, including not just the substance but why was it given to him to investigate when that was not as you pointed out not -- >> he didn't have those powers until barr gave them to him. let me ask where the line is between prosecutorial misconduct and bad business? is it proper for mr. durham to defy the findings of an i.g. to secretly get prosecutorial power and bury a criminal tip about a president he works for? >> that's complicated. nothing wrong with disagreeing with an inspector general saying i think they made the wrong call. to do that just to be clear, again, we're talking about internal fbi rules. do you know how much experience

john durham has in internal fbi rules? a perfect person to talk about this, that's our bailiwick what fbi agents do, this is what i did as the general counsel of the fbi. ausa in the field, lawyers, most of them don't even know what -- that there's factual predication rules at the fbi so this is -- and it's much more of an art than a science. you have the inspector general saying this is fine, the idea that john durham would weigh in on this it's not criminal, it's not misconduct unless done in bad faith. it shows poor judgment and it's also not recognizing what he knows and what he doesn't know. >> and said he finds not enough skepticism. two people were skeptical or three i think we'll come to you in a second, the times reported on three career prosecutors, one nora who worked for him for

years in the connecticut u.s. attorney's office, did anyone ever quit the mueller office over ethical clashes? >> the answer is no. and i cannot tell you how big a teal this is when katie's reporting came out for people who had been at the department of justice. it's unheard of. i was at the department of justice for over 20 years the idea of somebody who reported to me quit because they had a concern about ethics, i would have been appalled and devastated and wondering whether -- what was happening, whether i made the right judgment calls where i sort of had a failure. it doesn't happen. and here, reportedly there's at least one, up to three people, and nora dennehy is somebody who is extremely well respected and was very close to john durham so the idea of somebody who you're that close to saying you have lost all perspective, i'm

resigning, and i'm -- according to the "times" writing a detailed memo about your issues, that person has now written a report about people who didn't have judgment, i mean, it is -- if it weren't so serious you would say it's laughable. and also, this is what, four years of john durham. the mueller investigation was 22 months. >> yeah. katie, "the new york times" website an alert, tells us what the times is reporting. >> the times is reporting we're discussing many of the things that betsy discussed at the top of the show, this is an investigation that durham was careful to say highlights a lot of irregularities and things he thinks are morally, ethically bad judgment, bad calls and bad actions, but not criminal activity and i think that's one of the takeaways this is going to be a huge disappointment to the former president and his

supporters. tying together some of the things that betsy and andrew have talked about, this is an inquiry we always forget that began as the kind of review that people who are tasked to work on this team, including nora dana hi, believed was going to do what andrew was talking about. it would look at many of the irregularities and bad actions that inspector general had uncovered, look beyond what ig could do at the cia and nsa, the fbi, as the ig had done, and try to come up with policy, plans, suggestions, going to be a review. they were not thinking it was going to be a criminal prosecuting. only later in the process that happened, and that was a point of real contention within the durham team. is this where we want to go because there were questions about whether this behavior was criminal, john durham tried to bring two prosecutions, related to this kind of behavior, particularly the role that he believes that clinton campaign

played in fueling russia rumors and russia allegations, and he lost both of those times. basically putting them in a place where this report was going to come out and was not -- allegations that trump and his supporters had hoped for. he tried to see -- he tried to take this to a court of law and have a jury come back and say that, indeed, something illegal happened, and he failed. >> i want to -- i started flipping through it it does read like a hannity rundown. i want to ask you to weigh in on what the appropriate role is of a four-year investigation and a 400 page report chasing, you know, the sort of squirrel fueled conspiracy theories that permeated the right, particularly after mr. horowitz is deemed after many reviews, trump fired every ig except

three and horowitz was one of the three, an ig that is on trump's radar, he talked about him all the time, comes out and finds proper predication and no bias in the opening of the russia investigation in 2019. andrew reminded me that garland was asked in his confirmation hearing by senate republicans the durham probe would continue. let me play the frothy fantasies of the right when it came to what durham would uncover, which we know today is next to nothing. >> the attorney general brar just appointed the u.s. attorney in connecticut to investigate the origins of the witch hunt into the trump campaign. this is huge news. a colossal step forward for equal justice and equal application under our laws. >> let me say something, president obama and biden, sleep gee joe, knew everything that was happening, they were spying on my campaign and got caught. now let's see what happens.

let's see what happens with the durham report. >> i expect there to be many indictments. i haven't backed off of that and i continue to think there are going to be many indictments based on the intelligence i gave to john durham and i have seen. >> when the truth finally comes out, we'll also see how invested the deep state was in deep -- trump. their goal was to frustrate the trump agenda and put him on the defensive from day one. >> alarmingly, what radcliffe says happens this is from the story, durham used russian intelligence memos suspected by other officials of containing disinformation to gain access of an agent who was a favorite target of the american right and russian state media and used grand jury powers to keep pursuing e-mails even after a judge rejected his access to them. the e-mails yielded no evidence that durham has cited in any case he pursued. radcliffe does what he says he's going to do as dni he turns the

intelligence community inside out. i flipped through this, betsy is welcome to correct me, but looks like a lot of original sourced material from the cia was reviewed and what they find is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of any individual involved in investigating trump campaign ties to russia and what stands are six convictions, trump pardoned them all, doesn't make any of the prosecutions or guilty pleas any different, it feels like a weighty and important and sad day another proof point of what trump sought to do to the national security agencies? >> is that for me? >> yes. >> john durham, once highly respected hard nosed prosecutors and someone i worked for eons

ago as an intern when i was in law school, has twisted himself into a pretzel in an attempt to deliver what he could not deliver. if the goal was to wrack up many indictments and prove all of this russia, russia, russia stuff as trump says wrong, he's failed miserably. if the goal at least the consolation prize, was to hand over a politically tainted document that can be used in sound bites over and over again on fox news and other platforms, jim jordan has publicly stated he's going to call durham to testify in congress and i'll note as others have done, john durham should be exhibit a in the so-called weaponization of government subcommittee because he was weaponized by bill barr and turned against the very institutions that he comes out of, so i think andrew did a fine

job of characterizing much of this report as a difference of opinion. but i'll note that's a polite and perhaps most benign assessment of this report. really, the most malignant interpretation of this report is durham was tasked with doing something that was not only unnecessary to do because the i.g. had already doesn't, but tasked with doing whatever he could to destroy the origins of the original case. he's such a bright man that i know him to be, that when he gets things wrong, andrew pointed out the difference of opinion on probable cause, which he zeros in on that popped out at me as i started reading the report, didn't have probable cause, well guess what? there's two standards for opening a case. it's either a preliminary inquiry which is a reasonable suspicion or it's a full investigation which is specific in facts. the key here is whether or not

you did something investigatively, used a technique from your toolkit, that could not be used under a preliminary -- excuse me, under a preliminary investigation but used it anyway. that's not been found here. so the i.g. said i think they had what they needed, properly predicated and then chooses the language, should have never opened this case early on against trump. it wasn't fence trump early on. it was to determine whether or not there was russian interference with the presidential campaign. he slips into this too conveniently. against trump. early on it was just about hey, have the russians colluded or intervened in this campaign. as you accurately pointed out they did. there are two dozen russians charged with indictments under the mueller inquiry, six of them at least were card carrying russian intelligence officers from the gru.

you can't say there wasn't collusion found here. so i am saying this is, you know, durham is playing dumb. he's too smart for this and i have to say there was an agenda here and he's handed him this political product that you're going to hear about endlessly as trump runs his campaign. >> that's the tragedy, that this intelligent man has created propaganda for the right to use. i want to button what you're saying, frank, my understanding interviewing andrew mccabe myself is that an investigation isn't opened into trump until he fires comey and the sort of obstruction, the russia probe, is considered, perhaps, an act that would benefit russia. it's a national security investigation that's opened into trump, is that right? >> yeah. absolutely right. that's where it started. the fbi's counterintelligence division, fbi's counterintelligence detailed agents to mueller as they helped

him and gleaned intelligence as andrew knows better than i from the inquiry. trips around the world, ignoring italy, the italian government that could have been news to open a case against trump. i'll bet the italian intelligence was probably reasonable suspicion at least, if not specific and arctic cuteble facts. we'll have to find out if that's addressed in the report. you're going to see durham fulfill the mission, if nothing else a task oriented guy who won't disappoint and be he's going to show up at jim jordan's hearings and may see him giving interviews, i don't know. no one has been criminally charged except a staff level attorney at fbi headquarters that said i screwed up that sentence or two in a fisa affidavit. i've explored what that staff level attorney did, and i'm

telling you it had to do with how to properly characterize a cia source as an informant or asset and threw in the language and erred on the side of making it sound better. >> just to button this conversation and sneak in a break but the mueller probe led to 37 people and entities charged on 199 criminal counts, seven pleaded guilty two convicted at trial, seven sentenced to prison. on the other side of the ledger, here's what durham's number two does. the publicly unexplained resignation in 2020 of durham's number two and long-time aide was the culmination of a series of disputes between them over prosecutorial ethics. a year later two more prosecutors strongly objected to plans to indict a lawyer with ties to hillary clinton's 2016 campaign based on evidence they warned was too flimsy and one left the team in protest of durham's decision to proceed

anyway. more on this. no one is going anywhere. when we come back more on the culmination of the durham investigation, how the probe that trump claimed would uncover the so-called russia hoax didn't even recommend criminal charges for anyone against anything. armed with a metal bat someone attacked the office of congressman gerry connolly, a regular on this program today. the virginia democrat described it as an act of violence filled with out-of-control rage. we'll share what we know about motive at this hour. later in the broadcast they've been called one of the country's most visible white supremacist groups marching out in the open this weekend in washington, d.c. as the president of the united states called groups like theirs the most dangerous threat to our homeland. we'll talk about white supremacy creeping into the mainstream. the white house continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere today. ick bre. don't go anywhere today.

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andrew weissmann and i are collating our copies of the report. betsy, my question, does durham still work for merrick garland at doj right now today? >> that's such great question. what we know is that durham says this report is concluded. there's another line at the beginning of the report that i think bears highlighting, of course, as a preface to this, garland received criticism from democrats and folks on the left for not pushing durham to resolve this investigation more quickly and some cases, people criticized him for not shutting down durham's investigation entirely and on the republican end of the spectrum, there's always criticism that garland is

a weapon of the biden white house. at the top of this report durham singles out the attorney general for thanks. he says, after the inauguration of president biden attorney general garland met with the office of special counsel, that's durham, appreciates the support, consistent with his testimony during his, garland's, confirmation hearings, that attorney general has provided to our efforts and the department's willingness to allow us to operate independently. as people read through this report from durham, it's important to remember that this is not something that garland was involved in either to rein in the work that durham was doing or to participate, try to weigh in any editorial way. the fact that durham singles out garland for thanks and praise at the top of this report is quite notable. just given the entire ideological and political fur ver around the way that justice department is managed.

durham essentially gives garland a big thumb's up. >> what's so interesting and i would like you to contrast this for me with rod rosenstein and bill barr's hijacking and conclusions? >> i think i've said this before, which is, i've never had more oversight than when i was working for special counsel mueller. when i was in the field that was sort of like you never want to hear from justice and you -- there's certain things you had to report and you got oversight but it was minimal. here there were weekly meetings, constant communication about what we were doing, how we were doing it. the thing i don't know, the communications between rod rosenstein and his staff and the white house. i'm confident there were some. and some might be an understatement. so there was sort of an enormous

amount of oversight, weighing in. we had a situation we were operating with this sort of white house that was against our very existence, a leadership at the department that was sort of i would say bipolar in the sense that they appointed us, as rod did, and that was almost the last good thing he did, and then was sort of regretting it and then, obviously, with bill barr that was the ultimate betrayal. so this is a very different picture and the point i was making during the break, i think if i'm jack smith, looking at this going, it's goose gander time, meaning you were sort of hands off and let the special counsel do his thing and even though it's, you know, we all think at the end of the day, read 300 pages, it's not, you know, a good, thorough report, might be shotty or strained or

ironic, but he let him have his day and say what he wanted to say and it will be interesting to see whether merrick garland takes the same tack with respect to jack smith, which is there's a reason i appointed the special counsel and the department of justice is not doing an investigation of the former president and because of that, although i have the power to weigh in, i'm not going to. in the same way that he had the power to weigh in with john durham and didn't do it. >> let me ask you about one of the well known and well publicized of the durham probe, you can pick that up, have you ever heard of an attorney general traveling with a special counsel to meet with other countries' intelligence agencies before? >> that was shocking. reading katie's report on that, there were so many aspects of that, the idea that bill barr was -- as if he doesn't have a day job being the attorney general of the united states, that he's going to go to italy

with john durham. the whole point of having a special counsel, is that you think that you need to have a special counsel because the department should be removed from it so the idea that the attorney general is going to go with this special counsel, seems enough, much of the whole idea, and then it was very misleading to not disclose that the information was -- everyone thought oh, this must be about something they found involving the investigation by the fbi that they were doing something wrong, now that this was information about the target of the investigation. >> i guess i ask and i want to bring you in on this, what betsy said is so important, that there's a thank you to merrick garland for staying out, but there is a hug with bill barr who stayed very much in. how does that square with the -- mr. durham you knew?

>> you know, i would love to get durham under oath or have him testify before congress as to the level of involvement and engagement by barr. think about the time when international travel, where the down time you have on the plane you've got to eat, you've got to take walks to where you're going, you got to sit in the back of that car that's driving you, what was said? what was he tasked with? what did barr want him to do? why was barr there at all? to please masters? to please trump? again, the john durham i know, is the guy who would come out and say, i think this was inappropriate. i don't understand what's going on. the tip of the hat as you said to merrick garr, and who did the right thing and stay out of the way, 25 years in the fbi, never

got a trip to italy, tried. he they wouldn't let me. i remember them saying we can't let the a.d. of counterintelligence go that long. can't do it. sorry. >> it's an amazing story, and it doesn't sound real. katie, want to bring you in, you and your colleagues, you and charlie savage and adam goldman, if i'm leaving anyone out let me know, did do the definitive body of investigative journalism about the durham probe and what went wrong and the stun degree par tours of three high-level prosecutors one who had been his partner for all of his career as u.s. attorney, what do you deduce or analysis can you offer about what happened to him personally, to make him feel comfortable pursuing a political agenda for bill barr and donald trump? >> i would say again so much of the work that he did was done before he was appointed special counsel. that didn't happen until 2020 just before the election.

in the fall of 2020. so the trips to italy, he and nora dana hi had lunch with bill barr multiple times, drank with him and hung out with him when they were supposed to be doing a review. there was -- there are a couple of interesting moments in the course of that activity where i think there were sort of crossroads for john durham he could have made one decision or another and had the support of his team and didn't. when they got the tip on italy they were just doing a review. this was not a criminal investigation. they chose to open a criminal investigation of donald trump. he gets prosecutorial power and grand jury power. i think it's hard to say they buried it. if you're going to bury something you would not start putting together a grand jury materials because that's very hard to undo. i think that people did stick with him there because they thought okay, well, we seem to be doing the right thing, we're hopeful that this is the right

thing and shocked this is where this is leading when this began as a simple review. then you see him just make the decision as special counsel to go forth with these prosecutions. these prosecutions that many people on his team didn't think they could win. there were debates about whether or not they should do this. this is a choice and he's choosing to use the prosecutions to put into the public a narrative ate basically the use of research and whether or not this is a good or bad thing. what's interesting is that his report he says, this is something that we should debate. is this the right way for campaigns to conduct themselves. but in the moment, when he was basically feeling the pressure of the trump world to produce prosecutions, he made a very different choice and didn't say this is the sort of thing we should be debating as a society where we want our politics to go. no, he tries to cast it as a criminal behavior, and he fails. so you see him almost sort of

like waffling back and forth like where am i going to come out in terms of the facts and law and he's not necessarily consistent. it is something that is a puzzle, that is -- results in the departure of multiple people from his team and at the end of the day, we're left with his final word which is extremely mild. so when we talk to people on the team, they are still confused about why they were -- they had the staff they had, why john conducted himself as he did and still asking those questions and then when you look at the report, he could have said all of this a year ago. he didn't need to go down the road of these prosecutions. if this is what he wanted to do open up the stage for big important questions about how campaigns should conduct themselves he did not need to make this prosecutorial decisions. the one thing people said in his defense the entire time they were doing this work, bill barr and donald trump were out raising expectations in public in interviews, basically saying

that he was going to prosecute obama era officials. this was a frustration because they did not understand why they did not shut down that rhetoric even though they knew all along that was not going to happen, that evidence wasn't there. so there's still mysteries about john durham and a lot of questions about his conduct, but he was forced into a corner where this was the result both to his reputation and information he brought to the public today. >> i'll give you the last word. he painted himself into a corner. the off ramp was the horowitz conclusion. he doubles down on the conspiracies. if you look at the call and answer, i flipped through it, you have read more since i have, it's everything trump tweeted about. it looks like a trump directive investigation that yieldeding. >> i agree and flipping through one of the things that struck me is poor form is relitigating

cases he lost. so there is a -- he basically goes through the michael sussmann case, which was one of the travesties as a former prosecutor, mine that case was beyond weak. there were so many glaring faults. i'm reading through his relitigating that and nowhere does he point out the holes in the case. there was a reason that was an acquittal. it wasn't for political reasons. this was not proved. there's nothing in the report that goes through here are my failings, here's what i did wrong, here's where the jury concluded. to your point it reads like oh, look here's why he was so guilty even though we have a unanimous jury verdict, remember it has to be unanimous to acquit, all 12 people said, no. did not exist. that is poor form to try and use the report to say i was really justified. you had your day, you were supposed to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt.

that's your burden as a government lawyer. if you don't meet it, it's over. >> unbelievable. and the katie raises and betsy, we'll continue to look for answers. katie and betsy, thank you so much. betsy, welcome back. wonderful to see you and have you back on the program for the whole hour. frank and andrew stick around with us longer. up next with threats against lawmakers on capitol hill surging news to report on a brazen daytime attack on a virginia democrat's office and his staff. we'll bring you the latest when we come back. ck so, you found the no7 then... it's amazing! hydrates better than the expensive stuff i don't live here, so i'm taking this and whatever's in the back. it's already sold in the us. but i'm not taking any chances. the uk's #1 skincare

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late this afternoon we learned that a person armed with a metal baseball bat looking for congressman gerry connolly entered his virginia district office and attacked two members of his staff. at this hour connolly's office says the attacker reportedly one of connolly's constituents is in custody and both staff members were taken to the hospital with what is being described as non-life-threatening injuries. it is also the latest data point in what appears to be an increasingly dangerous time for public servants and the people who work for them. the end of connolly's statement on the matter reads, "i have the best team in congress. my district office staff make themselves available to constituents and members of the public every day. the thought that someone would take advantage of my staff's accessibility to commit an act of violence is unconscionable and devastating. joining our coverage is my colleague nbc news senior

national political reporter sahel kapur. frank and andrew are still with us. sahel, tell us what we know at this hour. >> we know from capitol police and local police that this attack took place in broad daylight just moments before 11:00 a.m. in fairfax, virginia, which is a short drive away from where i am on capitol hill right now. u.s. capitol police say two congressional staffers in congressman connolly's off were assaulted with a metal bat and received non-life-threatening injuries. they say that congressman connolly was not in the office when the assault happened although congressman connolly says in his own statement that the man asked for him before committing the attack on his staffers. fairfax police say the suspect was arrested, and it is not clear to them what the motivation was. u.s. capitol police says this man was not on their radar. local police have identified him as a 49-year-old man from fairfax. and all of this happens, nicolle, as capitol police have cited a 400% increase in threats

against members of congress over the last six years. it was less than 4,000 cases were investigated, credible threats were investigated in 2017. that surged to more than 9,600 cases in the year 2021, which of course began with the january 6th attacks here on the capitol. a spooky situation. a scary situation that seems to be getting worse in terms of threats to members of congress, which in some cases can extend to their family. violence against family members, violence against staffers. nicolle? >> fig, the chief of staff to congressman connolly tells us this, that one of the victims was an intern who was in her first day on the job. she was hit in the side. you have kids around the age that they're looking for internships or you've helped any friends with kids around the age looking for internships, one of the most precious ones to get is to work for a member of congress. to imagine that on the first day of a summer internship as an

intern in a congressman's office you get attacked with a metal bat is a horrific moment. >> almost 10,000 threat assessment investigations opened a year by capitol police. think about that. the math on that is something like 27 threats a day that have to get opened and investigated against members of congress. it's literally changing the way they live and work. and now the way their staff lives and works. so from a security perspective these are the soft targets. right? these are the district offices where you need them to be open and accessible to your constituency. that's our form of government. and i say to the people who are contemplating such violence against their members of congress, if you want the kind of government that operates behind closed secured locked doors, that you have no access to, then keep these threats up

and you'll get that kind of government that you have absolutely no access to. that's not american. it's not democracy. and it's wrong whether it's someone shooting a republican member of congress at a congressional baseball game, and it's wrong if somebody reportedly with a metal bat attacks an intern on her first day of work at a democrat congress member's office. it's plain out wrong. but with regard to security the capitol police have got to step it up at the field level. that's the soft vulnerable target. there's no foreseeable end to the threat against our members of congress. >> horrific reminder of the times in which we live. sahil kapur, thank you for your reporting. frank figliuzzi and andrew weissman, thank you for spending the hour with me. we're so grateful. coming up for us, the rise of white supremacy way out from the shadows and out in the open. much more news straight ahead for us. news straight ahead for us sail through the heart of historic cities and unforgettable scenery with viking. unpack once and get closer to iconic landmarks,

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it's a battle that's never really over. but on our best days enough of us have the guts and the heart to stand up for the best in us. to choose love over hate, unity over disunity, progress over retreat. to stand up against the poison of white supremacy, as i did in my inaugural address, to single it out as the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy. hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. recalling the disgraced

ex-president's comments in the wake of charlottesville, very fine people on both sides, president joe biden saying that the country remains in a battle against those sinister forces and that the hate never goes away. that warning was delivered by president joe biden at howard university, a historically black university, on saturday. it comes at a time when the threat posed by white supremacy to our country has never been clearer. the very same day that the president made those remarks hundreds of members of the far right group the patriot front marched on the national mall in d.c. they were holding shields, banners and upside down flags. the anti-defamation league describes the patriot front this way. quote, one of the united states' most visible white supremacist groups. the march, obviously an eerie and disturbing echo of charlottesville, a sign of an emboldened far right at a time when white supremacy has threatened to gain a foothold all across our country and in some of our most important

institutions. talking points memo has some remarkable new reporting today on an aid to far right election denying congressman paul gosar of arizona whose on ties to extremists have been under scrutiny for years. tpm reports they have uncovered an extensive digital trail that can be linked to wade cyril, who workses athe digital director for congressman paul gosar, one of the most extreme far right members of congress. his posting on far right websites and cyril's alleged involvement with white supremacist nick fuentes occurred before and after he started working in gosar's capitol hill office. gosar, his chief of staff, his press secretary, and searle have not responded to multiple detailed requests for comment. nbc news has not independently verified this reporting. you about the reporting is alarming enough on its own. add to that the fact that the country and even the u.s. congress itself is no stranger to violence from the far right.

sunday marked the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting in buffalo, new york. "washington post" reports on how residents from that neighborhood are struggling every single day to move on. quote, it is hard for jamari shaw, 16, to have fun at the park with his younger brothers in their east buffalo neighborhood. he's too busy scanning for danger, an after-effect of a gunman's attack that killed ten black people at a local grocery store. sometimes 17-year-old alana littleton stays in the car when her family drives to that supermarket from their home just down the street. quote, it's such a level of tension, she said. the threat of white supremacy rearing its ugly head and impacting day-to-day life in our country from the halls of congress to communities and their grocery stores all around the country is where we begin today with some of our favorite experts and friends. democratic pollster and the president of brilliant corners research, cornell belcher is back. plus donnell harvin is here,

former chief of homeland security and intelligence for washington, d.c. the editor at large of the bulwark, charlie sykes is back. and the former acting assistant attorney general for national security at the u.s. department of justice, mary mccord is here. mary, i want to start with you. and i want to understand as a baseline the threat. i know chris wray testified under oath, so we assume he was telling the truth as he saw it. in early fall of 2020 that the greatest threat to the homeland is domestic violent extremism and inside that the biggest bucket is the white supremacist variety. is that still the case? and has it gotten worse since that congressional testimony? >> that is still the case. i mean, director wray has repeatedly testified including in his most recent testimony in capitol hill that that remains the greatest threat, and close behind it is militia violent extremism. and i would note that in my own work, you know, tracking the

rise of extremism oftentimes the militia violent extremism has a white supremacist element to it as well. so we're talking about an ideology that sometimes manifests itself in violence, either direct violence like we see in mass shootings like in buffalo, or in intimidation and fear and threats such as what we see when we see armed private militias, you know, invading state capitols, sitting in on county board meetings or school board meetings and suggesting that -- or not suggesting but arguing that things that make the u.s. more inclusive, things like the teaching of history in an accurate sense get labeled as critical race theory and get, you know, not just criticized but almost violently criticized by some of the extremist groups. i think the threat still remains, but what has become more significant even than in

2020 is the way that it has become expanded to and enveloping so many elected officials and people in high-ranking offices. and your opening talked about representative paul gosar. he's been a prime example of an elected official who embraces extremism and embraces extremists. appearing in fact on a very known white supremacist nick fuentes, appearing with him at conferences he's put on as part of his america first political action committee. but we see it among other members of congress as well. and just last week we were talking of course about senator tuberville calling white nationalists just regular americans who he'd want to see in our u.s. military. so when we start seeing that sort of embedding of extremist ideology into elected officials, into our institutions, that's when it starts looking like it's

much more than the fringe and it gives a level of acceptance and permission to those who want to then use violence, intimidation and threats to advance their ideology. >> yeah. i mean, i think what mary's hitting on, charlie, is really important. it's an important distinction to understand. what trump did was create a permission structure for white supremacists and domestic violent extremists to be part of the republican coalition in good standing. right? stand back and stand by. very fine people on both sides. there were very fine people on both sides. that was the permission structure. it is more than that now. i said this jokingly. i said pardoning the january 6th defendants is going to become a litmus test for the republican primary and proof that the world is so f-ed up it's actually happening. here is ryan riley's latest report. in a jailhouse phone call proud boy joe biggs recently convicted of seditious conspiracy calls on supporters of capitol attack defendants to nail down ron

desantis on whether he'll pardon january 6th defendants. dominic pezzola says, quote, nothing got fixed since the 2020 election and he thinks the 2024 election could still be stolen by fraud. quote, get out there and watch your polls, pezzola said. i believe 2024 is make it or break it. the ludicrous thing you warn about and joke about when you're not on tv has become the news story that you have to read on tv. >> and in some ways it's even worse than all of this because to mary's point one of the things we've seen happen has been the mainstreaming of these attitudes. and i'm really glad you are focusing on the anniversary of what happened in buffalo. because the buffalo mass murderer put out a lengthy manifesto in which he talked about the great replacement theory. and i would urge people to put side by side what the buffalo

shooter about the great replacement theory, side by side with what tucker carlson was putting out on the air on a regular basis. what had happened was many of these ideas that were just on the fringes of the most extreme militant groups have now become talking points that are acceptable. i remember at the time people were pointing out that elise stefanik, you know, leading republican member of the house, was using some of the same kinds of language. and there have been polls that would suggest that millions of americans are now accepting things that would have been just on the 4chan website. so this is what's really concerning. also, to paul gosar, the fact that paul gosar has been trafficking in white supremacy is not breaking news. so is marjorie taylor greene. but you'll notice something. there is no movement to expel him, to strip him of his committee assignments. there's no movement whatsoever. it was just a few years ago that republicans decided that someone

like steve king, the congressman of iowa, needed to be stripped of his assignments because he was trafficking in white supremacy. we're now at a point in kevin mccarthy's house where there are no consequences whatsoever for engaging in this kind of behavior or sidling up to this kind of rhetoric. and that i think is the real danger that in fact the permission structure has not just been given to the most extreme organizations, it's been given to millions of americans who are going, huh, maybe, you know, this is going on, maybe i should listen to these people and find this kind of rhetoric acceptable. and i see that as a growing threat. you would have thought that the murders in buffalo would have been a wake-up call. they were not. >> so innocent victims in buffalo and capitol police officers in washington, d.c. the men and women who protect them are also getting smeared. i want to show you, donnell, the testimony of harry dunn on the

racism he experienced that day. >> i'm a law enforcement officer and i do my best to keep politics out of my job. but in this circumstance i responded, "well, i voted for joe biden. does my vote not count? am i nobody?" that prompted a torrent of racial epithets. one woman in a pink maga shirt yelled, "you hear that, guys? this [ bleep ] voted for joe biden." then the crowd, perhaps around 20 people, joined in screaming "boo. [ bleep ]." no one had ever, ever called me a [ bleep ] while wearing the uniform of a capitol police officer. in the days following the attempted insurrection other black officers shared with me their own stories of racial abuse on january 6th.

one officer told me he had never in his entire 40 years of life been called [ bleep ] to his face and that streak ended on january 6th. >> donnell, there's nothing special about january 6th on the calendar. what's special is who was there. there were donald trump supporters there at his invitation to do his bidding. >> absolutely. january 6th was a symptom of something that's been brewing in this country for quite some time. and i think it's important for people to understand that there's a timeline here, these aren't just snapshots. if we look at this in a continuum, patriot front's been marching. they're actually an outcropping from vanguard america, who was at charlottesville, and they broke off. and so what you see now is really the mainstreaming of white supremacy and hate. and the continuum continues.

i was on line the last few days looking at what was being said around immigration. and some of the things that people are saying in terms of the great replacement theory, what should be done to migrants who are coming across the border, isn't just reportable to twitter, it should be reported to the fbi. but this stuff is on the surface, it's mainstream, it's acceptable. if you turn to conservative media right now, you're not hearing about the fact that white supremacy is the number one threat to the homeland. which is not something that joe biden came up with. this is the fbi assessment for the last few years. you're seeing on conservative media the fact that we're being overrun, we're being invaded is the word, by people south of the border. and what that does is that radicalizes more people. and it gets them scared, it gets them aggrieved, and these are the critical components when you're talking about radicalization and the mobilization to violence. people have to feel scared. they have to feel aggrieved. and they stop talking online and they start doing things.

and we saw that manifest a year ago almost to the day in buffalo. >> cornell, this is an ongoing conversation you and i have been having in a political context but i wanted to pull you into this sort of broader homeland and national security context of the conversation. and show you president biden's messaging, which i think got mixed reviews in the political arena. the right went nuts. but my sense was they went nuts because he struck a nerve. let me show you a little bit more. >> there are those who don't see, don't want this future. there are those who demonize and pit people against one another. there are those who'd do anything and everything, no matter how desperate or immoral, to hold on to power. that's never going to be an easy battle. but i know this. the oldest, most sinister forces, they believe they'll determine america's future.

but they are wrong. we will determine america's future. [ applause ] you will determine america's future. and that's not hyperbole. >> cornel, i wanted your frank assessment of the message over the weekend. >> well, i think it's the right message. and i'm not surprised that the gop is up in arms about the message. but i think it's also amusing that the party of gosar and the party of senator tuberville, who's still defending white nationalists, and the party of marjorie taylor greene and the party of donald trump would be upset about the president calling out racism. and it is -- and look, at this point -- and look, and desantis signing bills to make it illegal for colleges to -- to spend money on diversity. right? it's about race. in the end the most prominent

issue that you see on "nightly news" on fox and that you see them pushing on the right has to do with race. and look, nicolle, i live in washington, d.c. and it is 2023. and have white supremeists marching through the streets of our nation's capital on a beautiful weekend with drums and banners and shields and screaming about how, you know, they have to reclaim their country, it is startling. and i think all america, we have to wake up. i think the union -- the union won the war. i don't think we won the peace. i think we lost post -- i think we lost reconstruction because these are the things we were supposed to work out in reconstruction. these are the things we were supposed to win in the peace. and we're still fighting the same sins that led us to civil

war. and look, i said before on this air is that it feels as though we're in a soft -- in a soft civil war now, a cold civil war right now in our country when you look at what's happening, and people get all up in arms. but show me where i'm wrong. show me where i'm wrong where if we don't keep going down this path and every night fox news is pumping the fear and people are afraid of the borders and people are afraid of those dark people are going to get them on the streets of urban areas and they've got to reclaim their country and they're losing their country and you see this sort of buying more guns and you see double-digit increases in hate and you see these people marching through these streets and every night you see people growing more and more fearful and you see this fear in our politics. and you see this fear in mass shootings. and perhaps, nicolle, you even see this fear, the remnants of

this fear in an unarmed homeless black man being choked to death on a subway in new york because he made people uncomfortable. we're coming apart. and biden's message is a really important one. >> i want to deepen this conversation. and this may be uncomfortable. but i want to ask all of you if you think it's possible to argue this to the natural extension that cornell just did. i mean, white supremacists, you are with them or against them. the answer from the republican party -- well, the answer from tuberville is we are them. but the answer from the rest of them is we are with them. and i warned, donell, from a homeland security, national security perspective, what the would-be violent domestic extremists who believe in white supremacy do with the messaging and the signals from elected republicans. >> when the nation doesn't come out with one voice and shout down these individuals, they feel an opportunity, they feel

justified. and what we're seeing from the right is that they're not doing that. once again, if you're turning to certain media, you're hearing this is a problem, you turn to other media, you're not hearing this is a problem. and the fact that this group can march through the capital, talk about reclaiming their country, that there's no republicans coming out and calling them out is a problem. they're being radicalized online. they're being radicalized through mainstream media. but they're really being radicalized through the silence of many in the political system. that is -- you know, we need to speak with one voice to talk these individuals down. i want to let the public know, i worked in government for 30 years. government is not going to solve this problem for us. full stop. we have to stop this problem. there's no appropriations bill, there's no legislation, there's no federal agency that's going to make this problem go away. we have to do it. but we need everyone across civil society to join in that

one singular voice, and that's not happening. >> i want to use this platform again to deepen this conversation and really talk about how because i think you're the most brilliant voices in identifying the problem, but i don't want to just broadcast these sickening images of white supremacists walking through the nation's capital yesterday without really trying to put into the conversation some solutions. i'll ask all of you to stick around. you have about two minutes to think about that. there's much more to get to. there's been reporting about a dozen republicans in the "new york times" with contacts to these extremists. we also have new information about the beliefs and the ideology of the alleged pentagon leaker. it links right up with everything we're talking about. and later in the hour a real treat, and we're going to need it, right? the father and son acting icons, martin sheen and emilio estevez will be our guests. together they have brought to life a story about connection and pain and the human condition and healing and everything that we need now in surplus.

you will not want to miss that. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues aft. don't go anywhere. what are folks 60 and older up to these days? getting inspired! volunteering! playing pickleba...!

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comcast business. powering possibilities™. there's brand new reporting in the "washington post" that gives us a glimpse into the thinking of jack teixeira. if you forget that name, he's the 21-year-old member of the air national guard who allegedly leaked online top secret pentagon documents last month. from that new reporting, quote, previously unpublished videos and chat logs reviewed by the "washington post" as well as interviews with several of his close friends suggest he was readying for what he imagined would be a violent struggle against a legion of perceived

adversaries including blacks, political liberals, jews, gay and transgender people, who would make life intolerable for the kind of person teixeira professed to be, an orthodox christian politically conservative and ready to defend if not the government of the united states a set of ideals on which he imagined it was founded. cornell, donell, charlie and mary are back with us. cornell, there it is. and it happens in news cycle after news cycle after news cycle. it's not a both sides problem. the left does not have a white supremacy problem of people being radicalized to carry out acts. this is an act against the united states government alongside acts of political violence. today -- we don't have all the information but staffers including an intern on her first day of wouk in a democratic member of congress's office was beaten with a metal baseball bat. it is happening right now. it's happening under our nose. and my question about joe biden is is he prepared to make the soul of the country argument, something that makes people

uncomfortable, to put in front of people's faces every single day that every republican may not be a white supremacist but every elected republican that refuses to condemn them does what donell just articulated, he sends a signal it it's okay, we're with you and you're with us. >> the truth of the matter is, nicolle, i hope he is, but i don't know. and part of the reason why i don't know is because look, i earn a living as a political consultant in this town. and i've got to tell you, i can alook around a lot of the so-called progressive organizations and -- of this town and i don't think they're comfortable with making that the front and center conversation. heck, nicolle, i get in enough arguments when i have to have these back and forths about -- with progressives that is about race, not about class, because they always want to make it about class. no. it's about race. no matter how poor or how smart my grandfather was, he was always -- he was always an n

word, regardless of how well he did. it is fundamentally about race. so we've got to get over some of this discomfort even on the left about making this a front and center argument. and to your point, nicolle, about what we can actually do about this, look, i'm going to get in the weeds here, but i think a lot of this is em3w0e8dened and it's possible because there's no political consequences for it. there's no political consequences for it because a lot of these districts that are safe districts and safe districts for a lot of republicans and some -- and for a lot of democrats as well is because of gerrymandering. and we are gerrymandering ourselves to extremism in politics and at some point we need a national movement here to outlaw these gerrymandered districts so that -- because this is not who the majority of americans are. you look at poll after poll, majority of americans do think racism is a big prb.

but we'll never solve that problem as long as the voice of the majority of americans are divided and silenced. >> charlie, there has to be a way to change the conversation in this country. and i mean, no parent is raising their child to be -- well, i guess some might be raising their child to be the bully but most parents i know raise their child to be the child who stands up for the kid being bullied. and you know who sometimes is the one being bullied? the one who doesn't look like everyone else, the one who doesn't talk like everyone else, who's different for some reason. and the people who aren't raising their kids to defend the kid being bullied are probably raising a bully. how do you go with where people are dealing with this stuff which is in their homes and in their lives and make it real and make it resonate? >> yeah. and that's exactly the point. government is not going to solve this. politics is not going to solve this. it's going to take that kind of moral leadership. you mentioned before that republicans are comfortable with saying we're with this. actually, most of them aren't. and the point that has to be

made is you don't want to be like this. look at what the white supremacists say. look who they are. you don't want to be that person. if requires that kind of thought leadership to basically hold them up as examples and say do you understand that when you espouse ideas like this, when you are silent, you in fact are becoming part of this and this is not who you are, this is not who you want to be. and this is one of the points that i think we need to keep stressing. people may go along with this but if somebody sounds the alarm and says look, we need to listen to the better angels of our nature, do you want to be associated with those guys and those masks who were marching through washington, d.c., do you want to be associated with the kind of people in charlottesville? do you want to be associated with people who think that people of other races are replacing them? because that's what you're doing if you side with these folks. and i think this is a conversation that has to take place on the right among republicans.

i don't hear anybody saying it right now. but there were times, and you remember this, when people like jack kemp and the bushes, both father and son, made this point. remember when george w. bush basically said to people, look, we are not going to use 9/11 as an excuse to engage in religious bigotry, this is not who americans are. that's the conversation that needs to happen. what happened, though, was when donald trump came out and said i am proposing to ban all muslims from america and republicans said, well, gee, that's not what we believe, we don't want to be associated with this, but then they went along with it. so there has to be that electric shock, that moral appeal to people. and i think that to the point you just made, no one is raising their child to be the bully, no one is saying i want you to be the person that hates other people. you know. and i think that's where the appeal is. do you want your child to be in this? do you want your child saying things like this? do you understand the implications of the things that you are saying and doing?

i can't promise you that's going to make a difference. but if that doesn't happen we're not going to fix this problem. >> mary, i want to -- i warned everyone that i wanted to have a conversation that bordered on uncomfortable. charlie mentioned the post-9/11 era where bush made clear we are not at war with islam, islam is a peaceful faith, we're at war against people who threaten us. is law enforcement prepared to roll out whatever the new, very of if you see something say something? i mean, law enforcement clearly can't wack a moel and grab every white supremacist prone to violence by their extremism and ideology. but even after 9/11 they didn't do it by themselves because it was a threat that was foreign in nature maybe. they were very comfortable asking every american if they see something to say something. does law enforcement have the spine to roll out a campaign that would ask everyone and their families or their communities or their faith

circles if they see something to say or do something? >> well, that's a tall ask because law enforcement is not a monolith, right? we've got the federal-level law enforcement such as the fbi and others. and i think even the fbi right now is under fire from the hard right in congress for supposedly being against conservatives and against people on the right. you've got local and state level law enforcement, you know, all across the country. and i imagine that in some places they are taking real actions to work with the community and try to rebuild trust that is so badly broken and to start the kind of campaign that you're talking about, nicolle, but i think in many, many places that's not what we're seeing at all. and in fact, in some movements like the constitutional sheriff movement, the movement of sheriffs that think that they are the most significant law enforcement in their jurisdiction and that their view of the constitution, however

they should interpret it, is what governs, even over federal interpretations and the spreengt interpretations and they are very complaintly anti-immigrant and insurrectionists in their own views, anti-government. so i think one of the first asks is to have -- is to really create incentives, carrots and sticks, for law enforcement to clean up their own houses. i mean, secretary of defense lloyd austin has tried to do this within the military. we've already seen through senator tuberville's remarks again last week, you know, him essentially praising white nationalists within the military. but as secretary austin knows within the military you can't have -- for camaraderie, for effectiveness you can't have soldiers working side by side with white supremacists and expect them to be able to accomplish their mission. well, the same is true in law enforcement. you can't have police officers working side by side with other police officers who themselves are espouing white supremacist

views, great replacement theory, anti-immigrant views, et cetera. and so you know, one possibility here, law enforcement throughout the country, state and local, they get grant funding in the department of justice, appropriated by congress. put some criteria on that grant funding, that they have got to take proactive measures to clean up their own houses of white supremacist views. >> cornell belcher, donell hashin, charlie sykes and mary mccord, based on the times in which we live i'm sure this conversation is to be continued. but thank you for starting it with us today. shifting gears around here after a difficult conversation we'll be joined by the father-son acting and filmmaking team of martin sheen and emilio estevez and their story about the human spirit, the need for connection and travel as a means to bring us together. martin and emilio will be our new guests to talk about their new film after a quick break. don't go anywhere. we all need this today. ll need y

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as viewers of this program know very well by now, we don't just talk about and cover politics here. politics is the lens, the prism through which we talk about us and our shared world and ask the big questions, connection or lack thereof, loss, love, grief, pain. in other words, we explore the human condition. and why now more than ever so many of us feel an urgent need

to connect and experience the human condition as one whenever we can. some experts actually believe it's the post-covid emotional roller coaster hangover. others attribute record levels of reported loneliness and isolation to too much social media and work, remote work, which has replaced human interactions with screens. whatever it is. it's the actors and their performances that make us feel something that we crave and need and find more precious than ever before. enter emilio evident rez and his father, martin sheen in their exclusive film "the way." it is a much-needed meditation on opening our eyes to the wider world and the power of human connection. watch. >> you should fly with me. >> yeah, right. >> turn the car around, pack a bag, grab your passport, forget your golf clubs. come on, father-son trip. it'll be fun. >> when are you coming back? >> i don't know.

>> so you don't have a plan. >> we agreed that if i let you take me to the airport you wouldn't lecture me about how i'm ruining my life. >> i lied. you know, most people don't have the luxury of just picking up and leaving it all behind, daniel. >> well, i'm not most people. if i don't have your blessing, that's fine. but don't judge this. don't judge me. >> my life here might not seem like much to you, but it's the life i choose. >> you don't choose a life, dad. you live one. >> it hits you everywhere that counts. joining us now, emilio estevez, who wrote, directed and acts in the film "the way" and has championed its rerelease. it is in the theaters tomorrow, right? and he's in the film obviously along with his father, the star of the film, emmy award-winning actor martin sheen. it's so nice to see you both. emilio, can i start with you? will i offend anybody? will i offend dad?

>> oh, no, no. >> i wrote this down, and i wanted to slide it into my mom folder. it actually makes me cry. if my son ever says you should fly with me, you know, never say no. i mean, my son's only 11 but i already feel his youth slipping away, and that scene just gets me. tell me about writing it and starring in it. >> well, that scene in particular is an invitation for martin's character to join his son. and as the film unfolds -- and i only have a very small role in this film. you see me in a couple scenes in the beginning. and then this is not a spoiler alert, but my character dies in the pyrenees, just outside of santiago decompostela. so martin's character, who was reluctant to fly with him obviously, he didn't make the journey with him, now is forced to make that journey after the

son's death. and what's interesting i think is he was not able to meet him halfway and even see why he was doing what he was doing, which was sort of -- he was leaving it all behind. he was going to travel. he was going to see the world. martin's character doesn't understand that. in the film he has to make the full journey to find out who his son was, and he's living in some measure of regret. so to your point, yes, if your child invites you to fly with them, get on that plane, get on that train, get in that car and go. >> and i mean the real-life story obviously is of your artistic partnership and creative partnership. but the movie i think lets all that pain wash over you, right? of regrets. of the choices you don't make. to see your child as they really are and not the expectations you place on them. he does make the journey, but he makes it without him. i want to play -- i want to play this scene, though, of what happens, martin, when you're on the journey. then i want to talk about the

journey itself. >> hey. i'm frank. new york. >> tom. california. nice to meet you, rabbi. >> oh, actually, i'm a priest. >> you can understand my confusion. >> yeah, a lot of people make that mistake. brain cancer. surgery left me with a terrible scar. i wear this yamaka to cover it up. they didn't get it all, you know. cancer. said it will probably come back. who knows about these kind of things? >> only god. >> anyway, they say that miracles happen out here on the camino de santiago. >> you believe in miracles, father? >> i'm a priest. it's kind of my job. >> martin, the writing is exquisite, and so are you. i mean, tell me about this character, about playing someone your son created. >> well, i think emilio agreed,

that came from an incident that i actually had in new york city with a catholic priest that i thought was a rabbi. i met him in the church there at 31st street at st. francis of asissi as he was coming out. and he told me that he just had brain cancer and he'd had surgery and that the yamaka was the only thing that covered it fully. it was just -- it was something i couldn't resist. and emilio put it in the film, yeah. and that actor playing him is one of my oldest, dearest friends. that's matt clark. yeah. >> it's amazing. tell me about, though, what the road symbolizes in this movie because you take this journey and that's the road that the viewer of the film travels with you. >> yeah. well, i think that all our pilgrimages are really a journey to our interior life where we try to find the sacred, most

vulnerable part of ourselves, which seems to be buried the deepest. but it's only when we are able to see ourselves through other people that we get a glimpse of who we are and it's reflected. and i think that that's how, you know, we heal ourselves is in community. and the journey, the pilgrimage is always -- i like to describe it as an effort to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh. so you put them together and you have an interior and an exterior journey which reflects in large part who you really are. you're able to find yourself. >> emilio, i think that it's too hard to do that in life. i think art has this outsize role to play right now. and again, i don't know why but it feels in a post-covid with all the political rancor, with the fact that i could sit here any day and have to rip up my whole show because a mass shooting could take place and it could even be at an elementary

school, that it's too much. what martin just described is too much to be be vulnerable in life. and so these films feel all the more needed. they feel like they should be required viewing. tell me about the decision to rerelease it. >> so the film was sort of languishing in this movie jail. we had taken it off of all of the streaming services. the dvd was very hard to find. and so it was really rescued. so we kind of rescued this film, got it out of the obscurity that it was living in, and the thought was just to make it available again. enter fathom events. we would like to put this film back in theaters. so here we are. tomorrow night we're back on about 1,000 screens nationwide, from coast to coast. we're selling out in places like fresno and auburn, alabama and we're selling out in thousand

oaks. we're selling out theaters all over the country. so what does that tell you? it tells you exactly to your point that people need this sort of film, that the movie's about healing, the movie's about processing grief and, you know, like i said, last week i was talking to eddie glaude on "morning joe." and we talked specifically about the fact that we haven't been allowed this time to properly grieve coming out of the pandemic. and i think that the film offers some measure of that. it allows you to disappear to the theater for two hours and go on this journey with these people and experience not only the joy but also take that time to grieve. >> i want to ask both of you, the film is about obviously a father and son and the horrific and unimaginable loss of a child. i want to ask you guys about your relationship and your working life. and emilio, you sort of bringing

all of the family name and telling this story in spain and going there to do it. so i'm going to ask both of you to stick around through a quick break. we'll be right back. don't go anywhere. you don't want to miss this. you don't want to miss this. (vo) if you've had thyroid eye disease for years and you can't get any shut eye because you can't shut your eyes, it's not too late for another treatment option.

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which may be directing you to the american part, it is designed so you don't look like a clown ordering pinchos when you're ordering tapas. senor! >> algo mas? >> tapas, por favor. >> we are with emilio estevez and martin sheen. we carry it with us, but we're the human beings that we are before, after and during, and i love that scene and i love all of the interactions, martin. [ laughter ] >> i was just thinking before we broke and we were talking about how we're all in such need of human contact and the human experience. i was thinking of something i wrote down years ago and it's pinned up in our kitchen to this day, a quote from mother teresa. we just make of our homes

centers of compassion and forgive endlessly, and that's kind of what we need as a nation, as a community. it just seems that this film is talking about how broken we are and how that brokenness is really blessed when we allow others in to help us heal and then we are able through that nourishment to help others heal. i think we talk about -- you know, god's presence or lack thereof in the world, and we don't really -- we don't really grasp the totalness of -- of divine and sacred and our humanity. we believe as christians that god chose to be human and that god dwells in us even in the worst part of ourselves, you can't get rid of god any more that you can get rid of anything else that's human and that's really what i think our film

addresses, how our brokenness is communal and it's necessary to express it, and not even with words, but with just actions, compassion, mercy, towards each other beginning in our families, our communities and our friends and those that we're not able to make any -- we think any real contact with. you can pray for them. you know, how they say looks can kill? they can also revive. they can love, and i think that's what our nation is really suffering from is the fear of our own brokenness, and when we look around, and we see we're all broken and i was watching that interview the other night with mr. trump. the only question i would ask mr. trump if i was interviewing him is what are your beliefs? what do you see when you pray? what is the image that you have of yourself before this deity that you pray to and that's all that's important to know.

we learn more about ourselves from what we're not saying now and that is what we're feeling and we see that expressed in so much anger and violence and retribution and self-righteousness where we just have to pull back and it begins, i think, with our families, with one another and that's why this film is so vital and so important and it starts with a father and a son and a missed opportunity. >> emilio, if i'm not mistaken and it just occurred to me a while ago, you ought to slide with me. wasn't that from catch 22? >> it was. which was the beginning, really of our whole journey when we left new york in 1969 it was to move to mexico, and it was the beginning of your film career, and so, yes, it was an homage to catch 22 and it was an invitation from the son to the father, indeed. >> i am so in knots about it. it makes me feel all of the good things and terrify me that my

son will ask me to go somewhere with me and i'll miss that window, and i don't want to spoil it, but the whole thing is doing exactly what his son wanted him to do, to live his life and want choose his life. it's absolutely perfect. you are both perfect. i invite you to sit at this table for as long as you want any time you're here. i feel that we can solve anything that's wrong in the world if. >> i'm on my way. >> thank you so much. "the way" as we discussed is in theaters tomorrow. don't miss it. emilio estevez and martin sheen, thank you very much for this conversation. it filled me up. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. we'll be right back.

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so i can breathe easier for a full 24 hours. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. trelegy contains a medicine that increases risk of hospitalizations and death from asthma problems when used alone. when this medicine is used with an inhaled corticosteroid, like in trelegy, there is not a significant increased risk of these events. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase risk of thrush and infections. get emergency care for serious allergic reactions. see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse. ♪ what a wonderful world. ♪ ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for asthma - because breathing should be beautiful.