donald trump will take himself out? is that what they're banking on president gap between him and trump is vast. he's leading republicans but if he wants to overcome trump he has to do something that makes voters like him more than trump and nothing has worked, even though he's not officially campaigning, but he's been campaigning for a while. >> right. and look, look at the operation that is surrounding ron desantis. the guy who is leading the super pac jeff roe was ted cruz's campaign manager in 2016. they have a lot of those ted cruz allies from eight years ago. >> they know what happened in 2016, ted cruz not going after donald trump directly did not work. >> until the end, may 3rd that day when he went off calling him a serial fill lander, amoral, at that point it was too late. the question is can they convince this man who is different than ted cruz to run differently. >> thank you very much. that's going to do it for me today. "deadline white house" starts right now.

hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c. with a gap between the reality of our post-january 6th politics and the republican party's alternate reality with its paranoid delusions about the deep state and the glorification of the capitol insurrection has never been wider. today's hearing on capitol hill by the so-called weaponization committee led by ohio republican jim jordan, involved, according to the republicans on that committee, fbi whistleblowers talking about supposed abuses at the bureau. that delusion was undercut by the reality before the hearing began. "the washington post" reported two fbi agents set to appear before a house subcommittee thursday had their security clearances revoked this morning over security concerns. that is according to a letter sent by the fbi to the house

judiciary committee on wednesday and obtained by "the washington post." those two witnesses are steven friend and marcus allen, and according to the "new york times," quote, mr. allen's top secret security clearance was revoked after the bureau found he had, quote, expressed sympathy for persons or organizations that advocate, threaten or use force or violence. fbi investigators determined that allen sent ap e-mail from his bureau account to several colleagues months after the capitol attack urging them to, quote, exercise extreme caution and discretion in pursuit of any investigative inquiries or leads pertaining to the events of january 6th. this is steven friend according to his former employer the fbi. quote mr. friend whose security clearance was revoked tuesday had refused last summer to take part in a s.w.a.t. arrest of a january 6th suspect who was facing misdemeanor charges. friend had taken t

excessive use of force. mr. friend, quote, espoused an alternative narrative about the events at the u.s. capitol during communications with his supervisors about refusing to participate in the arrest of january 6th suspect. the letter from the fbi sent sent to the weaponization committee noted in september of 2022, friend downloaded documents from fbi computer systems to, quote, an unauthorized removeable flash drive. despite the fbi's flashing red warning signs, about two of the people the gop is marketing as whistleblowers, the hearing went off anyway and left to the democrats on the committee to point out what the fbi flagged to the committee. watch. >> you claim your security clearance was improperly revoked but an investigation concluded you demonstrated a number of

security concerns, you refused to execute a court warrant and when you downloaded documents to a removable flash drive. the cherry on top could be the unauthorized recording of executive management, along with your unsanctioned interviews with sputnik news established by the russian government and owned by the kremlin and pop's cronies. >> i would note for all of us here that to use three individuals' personal experiences, including determinations based on a number of different levels of review at the fbi, that you no longer warrant your security clearance, is a very bold and unfounded statement -- >> the gentleman's time is expired. >> to claim that the fbi is a weapon of the democratic party. >> the democrats ranking member delegate stacy masska said today's hearing was to underline the largest investigation in justice department history, the

investigation into the capitol insurrection is all about one thing, and that one thing only, carrying water for the current republican frontrunner and twice impeached ex-president. >> this is more of the same. we see each and every time that we're here. the rules don't apply when it comes to the republicans. they want different set of rules for themselves and everyone else. they want a different set of rules for their political beliefs than other individuals have. individuals who are espousing their beliefs on the job where they're not supposed to it's okay when it's their beliefs. but if it were somebody else then a different set of rules would allow to them. it's part and parcel of the republicans' attempt to make americans distrust our rule of law so when 2024 comes around, and should their candidate not win, more and more people will not believe the truth. >> that's it.

she lays it out. it was a desperate attempt by the gop-led weaponization committee to peddle conspiracies about the deep state. joining us congressman gerry connelly who sits on that weaponization committee. congressman, it is as serious as it can be to have the republicans in the majority using and misappropriating the word whistleblower. can we talk about what these two individuals actually are? they sound like they have been reprimanded by the fbi and are viewed as a security concern? >> essentially, you know, in this theater of the absurd, the republicans provided a platform today for three disgruntled employees of the fbi to come and air their grievances. he did no such thing as whistleblowering. they are not whistleblowerers.

they don't deserve whistleblower protection. each and every one of them has a strange history that merited action, employment action, by the fbi because they became security concerns. that's why they have the security clearances pulled. some cases essentially their employment status either demoted or put on hold because they were no longer considered reliable law enforcement agents. to give them this national platform today was bizarre, at best, sordid at worst, and i don't think in any way helped the republican narrative, conspiratorial narrative, that somehow the fbi is an agency of the deep state and doing the dirty work of liberal democrats. i think what we witnessed today were three disgruntled employees

who have strange beliefs, conspiratorial beliefs, have questioned in many cases the fundamentals that have been established in numerous courtrooms all across america and by the january 6th commission, even now. you know, they believe it was instigated by the deep state and they blame nancy pelosi which would come as news to speaker pelosi who had her office trashed by the insurrectionist on january 6th and would have come to harm if they found her and would come to news to vice president pence, they wanted to hang him, they were calling for him and had they found him god only knows what would have happened. that's who these people are. >> there was news developed and new information developed by the democrats on the committee. let me show you congressman dan goldman sussing out who is supporting, and i'm not going to

call them whistleblowers, the disgruntled former fbi officials. it's kash patel, spoiler alert. >> mr. friend, what about you? do you know kash patel as well? >> yes. >> and did you receive any money from kash patel? >> yes. he gave me a donation last november. >> a donation? >> are you a chirtsble organization? >> i'm an unpaid man trying to feed his family, and he wanted to give me a donation >> let me show you what was being said on television by mr. friend. this is him on a show this week. >> i think the fbi has now been exposed as no longer an objective force for good. here's a situation where they looked internally and decided that they were not going to consider any evidence to open a case because it was inconvenient for their preferred political

candidate and instead, they targeted all the resources and all their focus on the individual that they viewed to be the most problematic to the existing entemped forces that we have within our intelligence community and federal law enforcement that is beholden to these growing budgets we've seen throughout the years as the mission creep has come home and the weapons of our federal government have been turned against the american population. >> quid pro whoa. fired from the fbi. the fbi run by christopher wray, who was a republican attorney in good standing and represented chris christie, chris christie passed his name to donald trump. donald trump's handpicked fbi agent. that's who mr. friend is maligning this week. he's being supported by a charitable organization and he's

not a charity, is a bombshell. >> the fbi has been exposed, actually it's mr. friend has been exposed. he's been exposed for taking money and providing his testimony as a paid agent, if you will, kash patel, who represents a right wing ideology, renary narrative and compounds an agenda that is inimical to constitutional democracy as we saw on january 6th. that's who this is. if anyone has been exposed and compromised it's not the fbi. it's mr. friend. >> what we do as a country when only one of the country's two parties and in the case it's the party of the minority, views the fbi suspending two individuals as a credible act, a justifiable act, what do you do if the house republicans and the majority then take and platform them and

elevate them. >> i think it's important to remember, let's go back in time a little bit, right. when donald trump becomes president one of his first meetings with james comey the head of the fbi, and he wants to meet with him privately and does and tries to get him to subborn his own oath of office to render justice in a nonpartisan objective way and to compromise an investigation of his team. when comey cannot give him that assurance he fires comey in a dramatic and public way. and then ironically, christopher wray who is being excoriated by the republicans is picked by donald trump to replace mr. comey. he's hardly a liberal democrat. and the fbi has hardly been a haven for liberal democrats since its founding. j. edgar hoover was no liberal democrat. off of a sudden the fbi has

become a tool of the deep state and cracking down on conservative ideology while protecting the alternative, is absurd and i think today was another exercise in theater of the absurd by the republicans. i don't think they made any headway and i think they actually exposed how flimsy and anemic their conspiracies are and based on almost lunacy and disgruntled individuals at best. >> congressman, i know it's been reported about, my colleagues have reported it on nbc news about the fbi agent who refused to participate in the arrest of an alleged insurrectionist. i haven't seen the fbi put that in black and white in their own words. are you interested in understanding if that's it? if it was just one agent who refused to participate in the investigation into the

insurrectionist? has the committee been briefed as a whole or either as a majority or minority by the fbi? do you have additional questions? >> well, i sure want to at some point ask the fbi what kind of screening is done that these people could be hired as fbi agents given their belief system and their sense of empowerment to second-guess decision made about the actual excuse of law enforcement, right. this individual you're talking about, decided to substitute his own judgment as to whether a s.w.a.t. team was necessary to arrest somebody who has, you know, very sophisticated weapons as i understand it, including ar-15, who has presented himself as somebody who promoted and embraced violence as part of his philosophy, political philosophy. there's every reason to want to make sure you're going in protected before you arrest that kind of individual. now this witness says well, i have arrested 150 people and never had to do that, so

therefore you shouldn't have to do that. you don't get to substitute your own personal judgment and you don't even get to substitute your own personal experience for a different situation with a different individual who is known to be potentially violent. you want to protect the people involved. and one of my colleagues pointed out n a neighboring jurisdiction in florida we had two agents who were killed in the exercise of trying to arrest people. it's not a theory. it's not in the abstract. there is real danger. and it is outrageous that one individual in the fbi would substitute his judgment and call himself a whistleblower for calling into question the judgment and exercise to go in as a s.w.a.t. team. i think that's unacceptable and disqualifies him from service in the fbi, and the fbi took the right action in suspending him. >> it has echos in trump saying from the ellipse let them in, let the armed people through the

mags. they're not going to hurt me. if you know -- right? >> yeah. absolutely. and i'm glad you brought it up because i think all of this flows from trump hating the fbi because the fbi wouldn't do his bidding and the fbi did pursue the russian connection and ironically one of the three witnesses on the table today who they called a whistleblower has, guess what, russian connections. >> they always do. congressman connolly, thank you for joining us today. unbelievable day up on capitol hill. we're grateful to talk to you about it. let me bring into our coverage from the "washington post" congressional investigations reporter jackie allah mayry in, fbi assistant director for counterintelligence frank sa gu zi. >> harry littman here, u.s. special correspondent for bbc katty kay is here. let me start with you frank. this is projection, deflection, but also feels like something

more sin na ster. it's a story you brought to our attention and my colleagues reported out . let's deal with the conversation from the fbi in terms of their handling at an hr level, actually read that from the "washington post" reporting, hello whoever's dog is chiming in, reports fbi agents set to testify on alleged abuses had clearances revoked. quote, in a letter to friend deal tailing the reasons for the clearance revoked fbi assistant director jennifer moore writes, quote, the security concerns stem from your refusal to execute a court ordered arrest warrant, unauthorized download of sensitive fbi information, failure to participate in a security awareness briefing, unauthorized dissemination of fbi information, unauthorized recording of executive management, unsanctioned interviews with the media and lack of candor during an interview at the security division. the letter shared with jim

jordan. what red flags don't start waving with this individual for you, frank? >> you're right to focus on this letter. jim jordan wasn't ready for this. the fbi called his bluff with this letter on the night before the subcommittee hearing. the agents and employees, the fbi folks, claiming whistleblower status, which is false, you could see the look on their faces. it means the fbi has about had it with the myth that they're retaliating against employees for merely expressing conservative opinions. i lost date, but apparently we're to believe the fbi is a left wing liberal organization. that's nonsense, but this means they've taken the gloves off with jim jordan and the so-called weaponization government subcommittee and the truth is exposed here. what jim jordan was going to do

was put out a fictional account, right, these poor pathetic employees have lost their jobs because they merely expressed contrary opinions to the deep state fbi. and here we read line by line, what i, in my 25 years at the bureau, including positions as chief inspector and a chief of an opr internal affairs unit, i have never seen this much come out, and it shows the absolute disgrace that these employees have made of their roles and missions. just a little glimmer of how security clearances get revoked -- by the way, each of these cases i believe say one the actual process has taken place, clearances have been revoked, first suspended, then revoked and then an appeal to doj. one of the members claimed hey that's it, the fbi handles it all and goes away. no. you have an appeal process independently to doj. okay.

the categories they check the box off include lack of allegiance to the united states of america. number two, criminal conduct. yes criminal conduct. and they say you don't have to be found guilty or charged of criminal conduct. we can administratively find your conduct was criminal. and then repeatedly going into fbi systems, you mentioned the unauthorized flash drive, this guy steven friend was interviewed by sputnik, the russian government media platform, and just outright lies about the fudging of statistics in the fbi's domestic terrorism program which is, god forbid, the fbi farmed out 1,000 cases from january 6th to 56 field offices because that's where the people came from and this agent friend is saying that's fudging the numbers. makes it look like there's a domestic terrorism case in every state. yes, there is because that's where they came from. it's absolute fiction. >> frank, do you have an answer

of the question i posed to the congressman, are you satisfied this is it? >> there's something very interesting about the letter provided to the judiciary committee and this subcommittee last night and it's been publicized, fox news got a copy and put it out, the entire thing publicly. i say it's interesting to your question about whether this is it? >> there's a graph inside this letter that shows a spike in the last couple of years in security suspensions and revocations. i mean a significant spike. it's rare. in my days, i would make some of these decisions. it was rare to revoke somebody's clearance. just so your listeners understand. revoking a clearance means you're fired. all the employees, you could be the auto mechanic in the garage, you need a top secret clearance. if that's revoked you're gone. it's rare. i see a spike in this graph within the letter, so what does

that tell me? they're having to take care of business inside the fbi and they're doing it. so no, i don't think this is the end. >> jackie, i want to bring you in on this. kash patel, he's sort of the where's waldo, right, in all of these stories. a witness with some limited immunity in the mar-a-lago criminal investigation run by doj. he shows up in the final weeks of the trump presidency with a new and disturbing role. and he is now supporting mr. friend. >> yes. there's a little bit of an industrial trump complex at play here when it comes to these whistleblowers that are materializing for house investigators, not just on jim jordan's committee, but also james comer's committee as well. but i want to just also give some context quickly before kash patel about the fbi letter that frank just noted. i think it's important for viewers to know that the fbi didn't just provide this

information unsolicited the night before the hearing. but actually, jim jordan had requested this information as a follow-up to a closed door deposition that they had with an fbi official. that fbi official in the hearing, in that deposition, according to transcripts i've reviewed, repeatedly told jordan that she -- and some of the other lawmakers who were sitting in on it -- she would come back and provide the information regarding friend and allen and some other, quote, unquote, whistleblowers that jordan was asking about, and when jordan actually followed up to say can you come back in, jennifer lee moore made herself available and the committee actually said okay, actually, we don't want you coming in anymore once the fbi had the answers. that letter we saw last night that laid out the reasons why these so-called whistleblowers were -- had their security clearances revoked was something that jordan himself had asked

for. now back to kash patel. i think that that helps tell the story for democrats about why they don't considered these disgruntled former and current fbi people to be whistleblowers. they're motivated by the perverse incentives. some of the testimony we heard today was very gripping. you had someone like garrett doyle who lost liss job and has to support his family and cried during the testimony and explained that's why he took the money from kash patel. but there is an element here to these claims being rewarded by political actors and incent sizing them to sort of cash out of these claims. steven friend has been working with kash patel as well. he said as much during his closed-door deposition if you read those transcripts, when democrats released their report

liable last month, they went into more detail about some of the actors that are supporting these former agents and more than just kash patel. some of them are trump affiliated. >> yeah. let me make clear, no one, not even jim jordan, disputes that they are not even just trump affiliated, but trump world funded. i'll show that on the other side of a break. when we come back, we'll have much more of the reporting from today's weaponization subcommittee hearing. democrats calling out republicans for their hypocrisy on exactly how whistleblowers are labeled and treated. plus how low can they go? the answer is very low. a new survey on the united states supreme court in the wake of the decision to take away a woman's right to choose, and later in the broadcast, new evidence that just might strengthen smith's case against donald trump in the classified documents case. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break.

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this press conference the point of the hearing to talk ability how the fbi is politicized, but do you think it's appropriate for some of these whistleblowers including two at your hearing today to be paid by one of the former president's closest advisors kash patel -- >> they have a family. how are they supposed to feed their family? 450 days the fbi has kept these -- kept mr. boyle in limbo where he can't work without pay. he's got four kids.

he was selected to come to this special unit they were forming in virginia. he moves his family and the day he gets here, the day he gets here, they say we're suspending your clearance and won't let him get access to his furniture, clothes, and he has a two-week old newborn child. you have to be kidding me. they're going to do whatever they can to feed their family and i don't fault them for that. >> breaking news, chairman of the weaponization committee defends the politization of his top witness. that was at a press conference this morning on the financial ties not in dispute not by jim jordan or anybody. between his so-called whistleblower and kash patel, one of trump's top aides. katy, we've been talking about the audacity of the right to stand there and say, yeah, right, he gets paid by trump's post-president adviser. >> it would be interesting to ask congressman jordan if

somebody had got their security clearance revoked because they were doing something, you know, he didn't like from the other side would he also feel that he should defend them -- >> eat? >> getting money -- >> feed their baby. >> if you break the rules of your organization, to the extent that these people appear to have done, looking at the fbi's letter that they sent out, then you know the consequences. the consequences are that you don't get paid anymore. the consequences is that you don't have your job anymore. if you or i did the something that would break the rules of our news organization, we would lose our jobs. that's cause and effect. the fact that they are acting in the name of your political party is neither here nor there. that's the deal they signed up for and that's why they don't have their jobs anymore. >> the piece that always makes me feel we have to parse it out to earth one and earth two what they did wrong is refused to carry out the top mission of the

justice department, which is to investigate and prosecute the insurrectionists. they weren't just like looking at trump's social feed. >> mr. allen, i don't know whether just on stupidity alone, he ought, perhaps, to have his security clearance revoked because he sent it out from his bureau e-mail saying please don't investigate what's going on or actually i think that there were government security officials who were inciting the insurrection. how dumb do you to be -- you're leaving a paper trail. just on sort of his intelligence alone i'm not sure he should have been there. you're right. as it was great to have frank spell it out earlier. these are the rules and what you're allowed to do and not allowed to do. he broke the rules of his organization. >> i mean, harry, do you have rule of law in a country where a search is insubordinated by a law enforcement official who refuses to carry it out? >> not by these three, they're saying we won't actually

cooperate with going forward against, you know, in the biggest law enforcement investigation in doj history. look, i think we should start at the beginning here with representative connolly's point. i've been a whistleblower lawyer for 20 years. it's my day job. there's a thing as a whistleblower they come forward with specific violations of regulations and then they are protected as they should be and conservative folks could be whistleblowers. here they -- and they've been found to have come forward with zero allegations and the ironies here are top to bottom and side to side, are that violations were precisely by them refusing to do their jobs, not going forward on court-ordered operation, taking in information, the same jack teixeira has done, i mean they're dangerous folks and they somehow wear the flag for

republicans being whistleblowers is wrongheaded in many ways, beginning at the beginning. these guys are not whistleblowers. they made that point strongly today. >> harry, what does it say that republicans are trying to misappropriate the wimbledon term? there's always a more sinister motive. they are reappropriating the term after doing everything they could do endanger the life of the whistleblower that led to donald trump's first impeachment. they are standing by people who are at a minimum, again, not in dispute, guilty of insubordination, failing to quarter carriry out a search. >> there is a political farce that extends to the level of language and the complete twisting of terms we accept and that are important. a point that hasn't been raised, what was a big part of the back and forth on the committee, the testimony that this guy gave,

the agent allen gave to the republicans, he refused to provide to the democrats. he said i'm not comfortable. goldman had a field day with jordan saying, he doesn't get to decide. there are rules here. and again, the whistleblowers want their information to come out, but this, in fact, you know, exposed him as just being a political operative. fine. jordan finds two or three people that are political operatives, but they're not whistleblowers and the irony is where people can -- what conservative means to jordan is specifically anti-prosecution of the most important the crimes against the united states in our history. that's what makes this particularly perverse. conservative means i don't want to enforce the law. so, you know, that is a stalemate from the get-go. >> jackie, it's an interesting dynamic to watch congressman

goldman and massket and connolly, who are fluent enough because of the dynamics of the trump presidency, to always be one step ahead of the republicans. jim jordan has been thinking about and dreaming about having his own committee to do this for years and years now, and it is -- i know on the right he's creating enough gris for the right but landing blows in the fact pattern or breaking through, it is a flop? >> well, jordan's success really depends on whether or not he can identify whistleblowers which is why you have heard that flank of this subcommittee, the gop members embrace this term and try to use it as freely as possible, whether or not these former fbi agents actually fit the bill.

watching the lawyers on the democratic side, people like dan goldman and stacy mass ket, who have been in court and know the ins and outs and all of the rules and technicalities around not just the law, but also the house rules, try to poke holes through what jordan is doing in a technical way, has been pretty fascinating to watch. you saw goldman sort of walk the public through the process explaining why democrats have been arguing that these players aren't actually whistleblowers. it needs to be adjudicated through the fbi and the determination ends with the courts and whether the courts need to decide whether or not these agents were wrongly dismissed as whistleblowers is a technical hat these people can wear. they have not gotten through that process. you saw gold man saying because democrats don't full access to all of the information, the transcripts, the testimony, that

republicans have had access to as well, that that is also skirting the process and undermines it and causes democrats to doubt more that these people are whistleblowers. you know, there is really not much i think the democrats can do in these hearings in terms of the substance and so you are seeing them actually just sort of try to fact-check and apply the law in real-time. >> frank, i will give you the last word. if you are a republican on this committee in the majority and you think that there is politization at the fbi, why wouldn't you start with chris wray? >> because i think they can predict what chris wray is going to say. they've heard from him before. he famously said on the hill what happened on january 6th was domestic terrorism. they don't need that mantra anymore. they thought they would get sympathy and people this with

employees who have been fired for expressing their opinion which we know is not true so they discarded the wray thing theory and let's try to get sympathy for these folks who have families to feed. i think that's what's going on. they didn't want the truth to come out. we even glossed over some of the more ugly parts of this. real quick, two things. steven friend and the s.w.a.t. team he objected to, because it was too aggressive, the guy they were arresting was seen at the capitol using chemical spray against officers in full tactical gear with a helmet known to possess an ar-15 and steven friend suggests he's cooperative and make an appointment to turn himself in. you want that guy showing up at the reception room at the office. that's fascinating. it's those kinds of things that gloss over and thought they would get away with it today, and they didn't. >> it's amazing. thank you for helping us sift through it all. frank and jackie. thank you for starting us off. harry and katy, stick around for the hour. up next for us, the decision to

end 50 years of precedent that protected abortion rights in america all across our country was not a popular one. donald trump is taking credit for it anyway in a big way. we'll tell you about it next. by we'll llte you about it next

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low. just 18% of all americans say they have a great deal of confidence in the nation's highest court in 2022. that is down from 26% one year ago. it is the lowest level for the supreme court in at least 50 years according to the long-running poll out of university of chicago which has been tracking the court's approval since 1972. the change comes from mainly women and democrats in the wake of the supreme court's decision to overturn roe, restricting the rights of millions of american women to safe and legal health care and abortions. harry lipman and katy kay are back. we try to focus on the impact for women but if you isolate the dead weight that is the supreme court for republicans, their proof points every time voters go and have the right to express themselves, we saw it this week. >> even donald trump has come out and said although he celebrated the fact that he

overturned roe v. wade he is trying to have it both ways. what he said after dobbs was more interesting, perhaps more reflective, he has good political instincts about these. he could see this is going to be a problem. he has sent out a warning to republicans to find a more nuanced line on this to not go as far and be as extreme as they have been. he knows what a political problem this is in 2024 and there's been election after election around the country, the wisconsin supreme court was about this, is about the issue of abortion and every state where abortion was on the line in 2022, then democrats won that argument. >> these are not blue states, kansas, states in the deep south and midwest, states in the central west. this is not a right-left issue the way that some republicans think it is. >> i'm not sure it's a gender shy. the assumption this is a male-female issue. if one in four american women during the course of their life will have an abortion, some man

in her life knows there is an abortion being had, is often somebody who has had multiple children so might be a husband -- >> so husbands will know what their wives are going through and don't want this to happen and don't want the control to be taken away from them and they don't want to be in situation where their wife has a pregnancy that goes wrong and there is a fetal abnormality and she cannot get treatment in the hospital. every time you hear those stories, it erodes trust in the republicans, but specifically in the supreme court for what it did. i don't know if the supreme court anticipated the knock on impacts because i don't know if they thought the same technology you need medical technology, a dnc, to solve a fetal abnormality. if you have to have a forced miscarriage because there's something wrong with your fetus that could threaten your life or the baby's not going to survive, then you need the same technology. i don't know if the supreme court anticipated the ramifications of what it was doing. >> that's what they are asking,

giving voice to, she very much wanted. she was so pro the life of willow, that was the baby girl she was pregnant with, but almost died because she couldn't have access to health care. >> because the hospital wouldn't treat her because the hospital and doctors were concerned about what texas law was going to be. >> right. >> and i want to talk, harry, about the supreme court. the supreme court isn't just unpopular because 60 to 80% of all americans think abortion should be depending on how you ask the question, legal in all or most instances. 93% of all americans oppose bans that eliminate the exception for life of mother, which is what's happening in some red states. 87% of all americans oppose bans that eliminate the exceptions for rape or incest that's happening in this country in 2023. the supreme court is unpopular because of its inability to hold up a mirror and see what looks like rules that apply to everyone but them. what do you make of this record

low approval rating for the supreme court today? >> the court's in such woeful shape and just deeply imbittering for people who care about it. there's a complicated relationship between people's views of decisions and the court's function as applying the law or as they say. i think what's happening here, it's nearly a scott moment for them. it's not simply that what they ruled, but the way they did it and a broad perception among the not, not only they disagree with it, but it was a rank political job. there was a hackry to it and everyone can see from what's on these he did kill roe v. wade. puts on three people bound and determined to do so and they did so. it's not like other moments where they make unpopular decisions because the people perceive them as having made an unpopular and political

decision. that is toxic for the court and it's political capital and confidence in it, that's really all it's got. that's the coin of the realm for the court and digging its way out from this hole is going to be the work of generations and we have more bombshells to come in the next six weeks with more unpopular and what people will perceive as politicized decisions. >> yeah. harry, justice sotomayor called it the stench of the court. what she was talking about were republicans in state legislatures passing abortion bans because of who trump appointed. trump confirms the comments, donald trump took credit wednesday for the elimination of roe versus wade embracing his role in selecting the supreme court justices who were instrumental in ending the half century precedent that protected abortion rights nationwide. quote, after 50 years of failure with nobody even coming close, i

was able to kill roe v. wade, much to the shock of everyone. trump, the former president and frontrunner for 2024 said on his social media platform. so trump and justice sotomayor agree on that, harry. >> there's nothing he won't take credit for. even this. but i think he's right. i think the american people think he's right and these justices whom he appointed, it's important to note, their views here are not simply out of line with the run of the american people, but also, with anyone else who might have been on the supreme court, with the academy and legal profession. they were chosen coming from the narrow margin to do the dirty deed they dirty deed they did. and people understand it as not being a part of the supreme court's function, not legally driven, but politically driven. and that is just as bad a kind of discredit on the court as you can imagine.

>> there are so many author threads to pull on this. i'm going ask you both to stick around through the break. there is much more ahead in our broadcast, including the ongoing feud between disney and desantis, costing the sunshine state thousands of new potential jobs today. news that broke this afternoon. we'll tell you about it. don't go anywhere. my a1c was up here; now, it's down with rybelsus®. his a1c? it's down with rybelsus®. my doctor told me rybelsus®

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katty. this is the breakdown. among women down 10%. among democrats down 17%. among republicans down just 5%. it might be some of the quieter voices who don't approve of the dobbs decision. this is information that the supreme court doesn't seem interested in, but it is an incredibly useful potential political map for democrats to really expand and grow some of their numbers among women, democrats and republicans, who make up the largest sort of groups of independent voters. >> yeah, that republican number is interesting. you wonder whether there is that suburbs of atlanta or is that the suburbs of philly. >> is it kansas. >> is it kansas, even. clearly it's kansas because they didn't like what they saw in terms of dobbs. but then you add on to the abortion side of things, it's been a real double whammy, not just in terms of policy and seeming to be overly

politicized, but then you have one justice on the supreme court, clarence thomas who repeatedly has had negative headlines in terms of his ethics and his financing and whether somebody has been financing his kids' private schools and the holidays he has been going on. it's no wonder the court -- and there are efforts in the senate trying to provide rules on that. and actually, there is some confidence that that might go somewhere. all they need is one more headline about the supreme court and you can start to see republicans and democrats in the senate say yeah, she does need a code of conduct. >> until then, clarence and ginni thomas are clearly, harry litman, a drag on the supreme court. >> that's an understatement. look, and it's not just his ethics, it's the same thing. it's his imperiousness and his arrogance about it, the indifference and almost contempt for what people think. and that's what really comes through. this is conduct that is far worse than caused a former

justice to resign and the just indifference to the charges is what i think really aggravates the whole sense that the supreme court. it's not simply that it's out of step. and look, there have been -- if this were a snapshot, it would be one thing. plenty of decision, miranda say where people disagreed in the short-term. but we're talking about a trend that's a real loss of confidence. not simply a boo boo on ethics, but an arrogance about it. not simply decisions with which we disagree, but which we think were illegitimate the way they were done. the priority is in a deep, deep trough. >> all right. we'll stay on it. harry litman and katty kay, thank you so much for spending time with us today. when we come back, new evidence for jack smith as he inches closer to a decision in the documents case. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a very short break. don't go anywhere. k. don't go anywhere.

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what's at issue here is that as you reported and cnn had reported that trump and his inner circle were told how to properly classify and declassify information. and i'll say even further, because i independently verified it, that they were instructed in the days and weeks before leaving the white house for the transition on how to pack up the documents so as not to take classified information. so this really goes further to the obstruction issues. >> hi, again, everybody. it's 5:00 in washington, d.c. it has always been about the

obstruction. national security attorney mark zaid making that point last night in light of brand-new reporting on new evidence that could potentially strengthen special counsel jack smith's case into trump's mishandling of classified documents. cnn is reporting that the national archives told the ex-president that it has 16 records that the archives are going toe hand over to special counsel jack smith that show that trump knew about the correct declassification process. quote, in a may 16th letter, acting archivist deborah wall writes to trump, quote, the 16 records in question all reflect communications involving close presidential advisers, some of them directed to you personally concerning whether, why, and how you should declassify certain classified records. cnn goes on to say this, quote, the letter goes on the state that the records will be handed over on may 24th, 2023, quote, unless prohibited by an intervening court order. now why are these records so

significant now? well, they get us straight to trump's state of mind, exposing and confirming that he knew exactly what it takes to declassify documents, but ignored the process and then kept the records even after the government asked for them back. in other words, obstruction. as we've seen from his public comments, the ex-president provides the furthest thing from a denial. >> if you're the president of the united states, you can declassify just by saying it's declassified, even by thinking about it, because you're sending it to mar-a-lago or to wherever you're sending it. and it doesn't have to be a process. there can be a process, but there doesn't happen to be. you're the president. you make that decision. so when you send it, it's declassified. i declassified everything. >> that's not how the process works, by thinking about it. the letter from the national archives comes as it appears jack smith's probe is zooming ahead with many trump allies

having recently appeared before that grand jury. last night, mark zaid reiterated that things are looking grim for the ex-president. >> if everything is as we are hearing it to be, with respect to obstruction, then there are looking to be some very significant serious criminal charges coming. and i would imagine we're talking weeks rather than months at this point. >> donald trump under criminal investigation over his handling of classified documents and his obstruction of that investigation. this is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. nyu professor and former clerk to judge sonia sotomayor is back. claire mccaskill is back as well. and with me for the whole hour, kim act kinstore, senior opinion writer. take us through the significance in your view of these documents going to special counsel jack smith.

>> it's exactly as you say, nicolle. these documents have the potential to reveal exactly what president trump knew at the time those documents were taken from the white house and removed to mar-a-lago. as he has said repeatedly, the president can simply declassify things by thinking about them. but these letters show in fact he was advised, that there was an actual process of declassifying certain materials, that there were particular processes for certain kinds of materials. and the national archivist had told them and advised them how to do this. he had knowledge of this process. he knew he could not simply declassify things by saying it was so and removing them to mar-a-lago. and so he not only has unlawfully removed them to mar-a-lago by failing to comport with the declassification process, he has also potentially obstructed the search for them by keeping them there and not reveal what he has known thus

far. >> and melissa, the government has already showed us some of what they are building on the obstruction side. it is in sort of these extraordinary releases of documents because of the extraordinary nature of going to a judge to seek approval for a search of mar-a-lago. so we know that they had evidence. and part of the reason they went before a judge to search mar-a-lago is they had probable cause to belief there was more evidence of obstruction. how do you assess the strength of the government's obstruction case? >> again, most of the time with cases like this, it's not the actual crime or act. the cover-up is really the issue. the obstruction, the sort of corollary efforts that are made to conceal what earlier had been done. i think that's a big part of what's going on. sort of process crimes that are adjacent to the underlying crimes. so, yes, it is a crime to remove the material from mar-a-lago. but refusing to be forthcoming about how much material is at mar-a-lago or whether or not you

are going to be forth coming in the future about turning that over, that too becomes part of the criminal activity. and that's usually where they can really get you. >> claire, i want to read more from cnn's great new reporting on where this intersects with what we know is heading over the jack smith right now, or imminently. in her letter acting archivist debra wall said they began searching for relevant records after receiving a subpoena from jack smith's team. they found documents that matched what federal prosecutors have requested. when notified that nara intended to provide those documents to the grand jury, trump's legal team raised privilege concerns over 81 of the records. the biden white house was also notified but told the national archives that the incumbent president would not assert privilege to block those records from being shared with the grand jury. the special counsel was also given access to other records not challenged by the trump team.

ultimately, the special counsel identified the 16 records in question as relevant to the grand jury investigation. my point is i guess to widen the timeline. jack smith has been on this particular prong of this probe for many months now. this letter came january 23rd. >> yeah. as you pointed out in the opening, state of mind is what this is all about. and the criminal law relies on the ability of a prosecutor to prove the intent of the person who is accused of the crime. and what these documents will do, it will once again show for the umpteenth 100th trillionth time that trump continues to lie. he just lies and lies and lies. and you know what? it's really weird about this is that he -- you can think well, maybe he has never been held accountable, so he doesn't really understand that everything that comes out of his mouth is evidence. so he finally has a day in court where his words and his

deposition dramatically hurt his case. when he said fortunately or unfortunately, stars can commit sexually assault with no consequences. he said that in a deposition. and it was played in his trial. and the jury i believe probably was very intent on looking at that when they reached their decision in the jean carroll case. then what does he do two days later or three days later? he goes on national television and says yeah, no, i declassified them. and i can take what i want. and all of that, every bit of that comes into evidence. it is -- i cannot imagine the nightmare it must be to represent a guy who just can't keep his mouth shut, and every time he opens it he lies with things proven to be lies. >> i think what claire's getting at is the constant confession. all of the behavior known to be under scrutiny by back smith, and we should stipulate there

may be more, but everything we know to be under investigation is something trump has confessed. yeah, i called the code red is the answer to everything. did you take it? yes, i did. was it classified? i thought it was declassified. i could close my eyes and think it so. did you keep it? yes, i kept it. did you show to it anyone? no, i don't think so. >> like claire said, when you're president, you can take it. and it magically becomes declassified which isn't the case at all. and that is important. as you said, we don't know everything that jack smith knows, everything that he is investigating. but not only it is important for the obstruction, it is, but there is a big difference between an administrative mistake of taking classified information and intentionally and willfully taking it, directing others to do that. that's a crime. >> and directing lawyers to lie. >> that is a crime. if these documents had any sort of national security concerns, that opens up other avenues, this could be much more serious than this case seemed to be at

first blush, if it was just a matter of taking the documents and not doing all the cover-up. >> i remember when i was covering the mueller investigation, there were some in the trump era doj who were skeptical of the obstruction case because of what they thought was a weakness in the underlying crime. i don't agree with that assessment. but you certainly can't say that here. he is essentially confessing on tv the taking the classified documents. and then the obstruction, they have security camera footage. the reason all of the lawyers have been before jack smith's grand jury is because a federal judge already said jack has already established. it was down in the commission of criminality. crimes have been committed. they're so far along, much farther than mueller ever got. >> i think that's correct. the saying that it's not the crime, its cover-up. it's the cover-up and the crime here. it seems to have been both. and the more we learn about it, the more serious both of those things seem to be. >> i want to read some more of

what -- when you lay over the reporting of what jack smith is getting his hands on, with the investigative reporting that has emerged, it will be a year in august since the mar-a-lago, since a judge approved the mar-a-lago search. let me read this from april. in the classified documents case, federal investigators have gathered new and significant evidence that after the subpoena was delivered, trump looked through the contents of some of the foxes of documents and found apparently out of a desire to keep certain things in his possession. people familiar with the investigation said. melissa, when you look at how much has been established, and again, this is a pattern now, over seven years of covering trump. journalism sort of reveals a behavior. someone asked trump about it, he cops to it. you know, damn right i had it, it's mine. and then the lagging indicator of a federal prosecutor investigating it. do you see anything in terms of public facing that wouldn't all point in the same direction of the publicly facing fact pattern?

>> nicolle, it's sort of striking to think about all of the different criminal exposures, legal exposures that trump has going on right now from the probe in georgia to the civil trial with e. jean carroll and everything going on with jack smith. they all sort of cluster around a central set of facts. this is a man who believed he was entitled to do whatever he liked because of his office, because of his station. and who care what's the rules were? that was pretty much the watch word for his presidency. it was an incredibly unorthodox presidency in terms of following basic rules for doing lots of things, including issuing executive orders. this is no different. this is someone who thought that if you were a star, you were entitled to do certain things. if you were president, you were entitled to do certain things. and if you wanted to stay president you were entitled to do certain things. so, again, all of this is clustering around the incredible entitlement of this one individual. >> claire, i want to put up the

list of trump allies. i don't think it's a complete list, but this is who we know has been interviewed and/or before the grand jury investigating the classified document, mishandling, and obstruction. christina bobb, the lawyer who wrote the attest station, kash patel, walt nauta, the one-time military aid who followed trump to mar-a-lago. pat cipollone, former white house council. patrick philbin, one of the deputy white house councils. molly mitchell, i believe that's a personal aide. dan scavino, william russell, william harrison, evan corcoran. he is actually a lawyer who has been before the grand jury in the documents case and is no longer representing trump in the documents case. and tim parlatore. he is a trump lawyer who left that legal team this week, has also testified in the documents case before the grand jury. it's an extraordinary portrait

of something that used to be breaking news, right? trump lawyer has to testify because they've passed that incredibly high hurdle of a judge saying that crimes may have been committed. you now have a laundry list with so many lawyers, it's hard to keep track of all them who have now become witnesses in the criminal investigations into trump. >> yeah. i really think the most -- maybe the most dangerous occupation in america is being a lawyer to donald trump. i've never seen a grand jury that has this many lawyers being called in front of it. and these lawyers know exactly what's at stake. they know exactly what happens if they lie. they know exactly what happens to their livelihood, their careers and their families. if they do not testify honestly. and how many of them got immunity? how many of that long list, nicolle, got immunity? they all represented a guy who had a dangerous combination, according to my grand mother. she always told me, claire, when

you combine stupid with stubborn, it is really a bad thing. and that's what donald trump has been about these documents. and anybody who wants to equate documents being found in mike pence's quarters or office or in biden's home or office, all donald trump had to do -- talk about stupid and stubborn -- all he had to do when the documents ended up at mar-a-lago is oh, i'm sorry. we didn't mean to bring them. here they are. here, take them all. we did want to do this. and none of this would have happened. stubborn and stupid. >> yeah, and it's a good point. i want to put the timeline out. the only reason we know about this case, the only reason mar-a-lago was searched is because if you back up from last august, many, many months of stubborn stupidity didn't yield that result. so here is the timeline. january 16th of 2022, trump finally gives back 15 boxes to the national archives, and that includes classified documents. in may, doj gets involved.

they subpoena trump for all the remaining classified material. they know based on what comes back in the 15 boxes that there is more, and it's classified. june 3rd, the trump team met with doj and provided this letter saying that there is nothing left. this is the attest station that i think turned some of the lawyers into grand jury witnesses. august 8th, the fbi goes in and searches, and they indeed find what they put in their petition to a juvenile judge, 100 documents at mar-a-lago. fast forward to october. doj tells trump we believe there is more there. and then in november and december, trump's lawyers largely legal team finds at least two more classified documents at a storage site in west palm beach. melissa, it's interesting to me how much of this was opaque. we only found out about it when there was enough obstruction to the efforts first by the national archives and then by the fbi and doj. how much do you think is sort of

churning under the surface now in the jack smith probe? >> well, we know, nicolle, a few weeks ago that jack smith was intensifying his efforts around this document situation at mar-a-lago. and i think we're beginning to see the fruits of that now. there are a lot of people who have been interviewed who have gone before the grand jury, and probably more evidence is being surfaced through that grand jury episode. this is a special counsel that's been very busy and very much at work on this particular issue. and i think we can expect to hear more over the next couple weeks about where this probe is heading. but it seems like there have been lots of ducks who look pretty smooth on the surface, but underneath are paddling like mad. >> and i view and have tried to cover this week's events with this in mind the rights reaction to durham as ground lay for whatever is going to happen. because i think some people on the right must understand these things well enough to give this

kind of advice to trump, that there is a lot happening under the surface. you look at the number of witnesses and lawyers who have been before this committee. thing is a lot of ground softening, sowing more distrust of the doj. i'm not suggesting they got together and they're coordinated or strategic, but i do think enough of them said whatever durham's got, we've got to spin it as evidence that the fix is in. and i think this ridiculousness up on the hill with the fbi is all part of that as well. >> i think it is too. the seeds of this were planted way back in the mueller report when bill barr tried to make it seem like no, nothing to see here. >> don't read it. >> you can just deny facts that you don't like. >> ahead of time. >> even if they're coming from credible sources, credible investigation. and in this case we saw how quickly the gop went from being pro law enforcement to the fbi is deep state and trying to harm the president and trying the harm people. i think you're only going to see that escalate. as much mud as they can throw, as much dust as they can kick up

to prevent the actual work, the actual trouble that donald trump faces, the better it is politically for them. >> and we'll just remind everybody that the people that are providing information are call trump's post-president sort of dead-enders, kash patel, i mean all the people who were sort of still helping him obstruct these efforts to get these documents back. melissa murray, thank you for starting us off and making sense of this for us. claire and kim, stick around. when we come back, just as florida governor ron desantis is ready to jump into the presidential contest, disney, one of florida's biggest employers, robbed him of any claim he might be good on the jobs and economy front. we'll explain that story next. plus, fallout from that mammoth settlement between fox news and dominion. we'll be joined on set by our good friend marc elias who is fighting to expand voting rights all across the country in the face of republicans pushing the big lie. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere.

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if for some reason it was an act of brilliant and deep undercover strategicry for ron desantis to limp to the starting line of the republicans' 2024 presidential primary campaign next week as the anti-business job-killing republican alternative, then he should consider today's breaking news a smashing success. because today, as governor desantis prepares to take the presidential plunge, disney, one of his state's largest employers, robbed him of any claim he could make that he is actually good for jobs and the economy in florida. it goes back to the company's

response to the so-called don't say gay bill in florida and the resulting fight, one desantis picked himself in the first place against disney over park authority. now "the new york times" reports the company is pulling the plug on a nearly $1 billion office complex that was scheduled for construction in orlando, florida. it would have brought more than 2,000 jobs to the region with $120,000 as the average salary, according to one estimate. joining our coverage, democratic strategist asia mills, claire and kim are still with us. it's hard to figure out what ron desantis thought was going to happen, but what has happened is that florida's been deprived of thousands of jobs from one of its biggest employers. >> i wouldn't, nicolle, at all try to get into ron desantis's head, but yes, the hypocrisy that is on display here where

you have a republican presumptive presidential nominee who is doing everything in his power to keep business out of his state, who is clearly doing the opposite of what most of his party believes you should do in terms of relationships with corporate america. so i don't know what he's thinking, but i think we all can see that he is just one big hypocrite. >> on the still can do a lot of harm side, aisha, i want to share this in "the new york times" about this stack of bills that has -- if there is any ideological through-line, it's the cruelty. "the times" report says on wednesday desantis signed a slew of measures that hit all the culture clash notes his base has rewarded him including banning transition care for minors, preventing children from attending adult live performances like drag shows and restricting the use of preferred pronouns in schools. it was his third consecutive day

of public bill signing ceremonies across the state. the thing i would quibble is this is what his base has rewarded him for. there is really not evidence of that. i can this is a misread. i think his base rewarded him for the perception that florida, because of its weather somehow weathered the pandemic better than other parts of the country, which is debatable at best. this is not what people show up for desantis for this. is a real misread that has the impact of doing a lot of harm to a lot of families and communities. >> absolutely, and a lot of kids. on this misread, the big misread here is a lot of conservatives have gay children or have questioning children, or maybe even have trans children. and what happens when we have this witch hunt against a minority community and enact ridiculous laws is that everybody is harmed. everybody is harmed from bigotry and bias. for example, one of the things

to come out of this slew of hate bills that he signed today is that you can criminally be prosecuted for using a bathroom that is designated as different than the gender you were born as. now what does that mean? it means that when i have to go to the bathroom, which have i done on more than one occasion in an establishment where there are single stalls and one might say man and one might say women, sometimes i jump into the men's room because y'all know the ladies room line can get long. what desantis did is criminalize going into a bathroom stall that has men written on it. these political plays aren't just an attack on a small minority group of people. the outpouring of the way that they're going to be translated is going to hurt us all, no matter who you are, what walk of life you're from, which is why show should be against bigotry in all its forms, period. >> we cover dwyane wade who left

the state, but he is probably the only one who can do that, aisha. most people have to stay where they live, where they work, where their jobs are. and to your point, most parents want the very same things. and to wage this war against parents and families with lgbtq kids should be a war that everybody wants to be on the side of the families. do you see any evidence yet that this is -- this is the part of the story that is getting out there? >> you know, the part of the story i have to say that's not getting out there, because so many people in florida, and i would even argue what the majority of families in florida think that these measures are just unnecessary, ridiculous, and extreme. here is the problem, though. it's a conversation we only tend to have around political season. florida has been -- the voting rights in florida have been decimated so that the people who really believe that this is

wrong, that want to actually cast ballots to act against it don't actually have the power that they need at the booth to be able to really flex what's in their souls and what's in their hearts. the bigger piece of this is beyond messaging. it is structural. while i believe in what we see with disney, for example, and everybody who supports disney is a lot of people think this is crazy, the people who live there. and they want to be able to do something about it, but their hands are tied because of the way the gerrymandering and the jiggering and frankly the lies and the cheating of the republicans there have created a system that they can do foul things without many repercussions because they have minority rule. >> i mean, claire, this show came to your state before it showed its ugly head in florida. your thoughts. >> well, you know, desantis, first of all, he had a very bad night the other night. you know, his theory of the case

is republicans are tired of losing. so what does he do? he loses a gubernatorial primary in kentucky where he endorsed, and trump's candidate won. and then in jacksonville, you know, place that hadn't had a democratic governor very often in the last i think 50 years, but, you know, the democrat wins against desantis' endorsed candidate. so he's got a little string of losing going on here. he is going after business. he is fighting business. a republican is fighting business. and he is doing performance politics only. his governorship is all about theater. you know, let's do a stunt where we send migrants up to an island in the northeast. let's go arrest people that voted and didn't realize they couldn't because they were maybe on probation or parole. let's arrest them. let's put them in handcuffs and parade them in front of the camera. and this bathroom thing. everybody needs to pay

attention. nobody is going to be prosecuted under these things. those people he arrested weren't found guilty. this is all stunts. it's just stunts. and this is what trump has taught the republican party, that this is how you lead. you pretend you're doing something and you grab the camera for ten minutes and try to make people angry. >> well, claire, what does it say that the republicans -- i mean, desantis is ah not off to a particularly good start. and i would never describe the republican base as having high standards. what do you think it says that he's not really getting much of a toehold in the gop? >> it's hard when you're a mini me, you know. he's trying be a mini me. he is trying to be a trump mini me. he wants to be just like trump and he thinks he is going to be smarter. keep in mind, the guy who is running his campaign now is the same one who was advising ted cruz who thought it was good idea to get up in front of the convention and get booed at the very end of the nomination process for back in 2016.

so it is a situation where i think he is never going to break out trying to be trump. and i think the only way trump gets beat is if everybody who was against trump in the republican party coalesces around one candidate. >> claire raises such an interesting point. it is ted cruz's top adviser. ted cruz in '16 famously withstood the smears of his father and wife by trump and through his weight behind him. that's who is running desantis' campaign. >> and to the point the pitch about being tired of losing, to carry that further, desantis is losing in legal fights against disney. first of all, nobody wants him to fight disney. and even some of these bills that he is doing, the anti-woke bill was imlarge part halted by the 11th circuit, or the 11th circuit sustained the injunction to halt that. that's one of the most conservative courts in the country.

if even they are saying you really can't do that, there is this thing called the first amendment, and you can't muzzle people, then he is not going win on the legal points either. but he thinks the culture war is the way to go. he has doubled, tripled down, and he is going to ride this horse off a cliff or wherever it goes. and it look likes off the cliff may be the destination. >> we'll be watching. thank you so much for spending time with us. kim sticks around a little longer, because when we come back, we'll turn to this. how the truth about the last election is backfiring big-time on the big lie's loudest proponents. top democratic voting rights attorney marc elias will be our guest right here at the table, as promised. stay with us. nt them. (woman) i want a network that won't let me down. even up here! (woman #2) with an unlimited plan that's truly right for me. (woman #3) with verizon's new myplan, i get exactly what i want. and only pay for what i need. (man #2) now i'm in charge... ...of my plan. (vo) introducing myplan from verizon, the first and only plan where you choose what goes in, from apple music to disney bundle.

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as we have covered just this week on our broadcast on this show, republicans around the country continue to peddle the big lie ahead of the 2024 elections. but perhaps this is the good news, it's not working. politically, at least. running on election denialism has proven to be a loser for the gop, not just the ballot box, but also in court. take, for example, what happened in a courtroom in arizona where former gubernatorial candidate and major election denier kari lake continues to this day to wage a legal fight saying that she won the 2022 election against democrat katie hobbs. in court today, this is really happening, her attorney told the judge he'd be presenting evidence that would turn the case in her favor, that maricopa county did not verify voter

signatures on hundreds of thousands of early ballots. but things did not go to plan when the lawyer called his first witness. the arizona republic writes this, quote, jacqueline onigkeit who worked as a level one reviewer during the last year's election spent more than an hour explaining the lengths to which the county went to verify signatures, the weeks' long training of workers, the two shifts, the admonition to get it right. as a witness for the defense, she was dynamite. the problem is she was supposed to be the star witness for kari lake. joining us at the table, voting rights attorney and founder of the site democracy docket marc elias. kim is still here. i think it's important to point out that there a political price to pay, but they're still steaming ahead in the policy realm with voter suppression laws. >> absolutely. and when you look for example what kari lake is doing, you would think that her team would have been surprised, her team would be -- it would be embarrassed by this. but look at what kari lake is

saying on twitter. they are so disconnected from what actually goes on in the courtroom from what they say in the parking lot. i used to say with rudy giuliani, he could say whatever he wanted in the parking lot, but when it came to the courtroom, it's a different story you. continue to see that over and over again without any abatement. >> what's interesting, and i guess with rudy, it's in front of four seasons landscaping. >> it was indeed. a heck of parking lot. >> his parking lots got bigger. what the danger seems to be to democracy, what happens in the parking lot doesn't stay in the parking lot. it ends up on the steps of the u.s. capitol in the form of an insurrection. how do you take the winds in court and use them to try to permeate an information fact-free zone. that is the problem. that is the great threat to our democracy today is that the disconnect between the reality, the reality of what goes on in court, the reality of voter suppression is now so disconnected from what a large

segment of the population of this country hears and believes, you know, i created this democracy docket in part to put the actual court pleadings on the site so people didn't have to trust me or you. >> to make it so boring, just the far, ma'am. >> and yet people will say well, that's not accurate. i don't know what you mean that's not accurate. it's what they wrote. >> i was always amazed by what the right would swallow about mueller, this guy appointed by a republican would get into a tree house with all these other disparate people and launch some kind of -- it was insane. but we're ten insanity cycles beyond that now where you've got three dismissed fbi officials up on capitol hill talking about politicization when they're being supported by kash patel. we're so far -- we're on the other side of the moon. and i wonder what you think in terms of the lie powering legislation that suppresses the right to vote, the lie being at the intersection of domestic violent extremism. are we in this post election

defilism phase? >> i think we are. you look at the durham report that just came out. the right is treating this as a bombshell, not acknowledging the fact that much of what is complained about in the report led to the acquittal of two individuals. >> right. >> they are just so quick to seize on anything whether it's true or not. and it has enormously dangerous consequences for democracy. because part of democracy is not just the actual rules, but it is -- it is a consensus about the norms. and what we've lost is any sense on the other side, upon republicans that the norms matter, and that they're even a good thing. >> the problem also seems to be that republicans in this town will privately agree with everything you just said. but they won't do any of it on fox news. >> they won't do it on fox news. they won't do it on msnbc. they won't do it anywhere. they may say it in private, but there is no hero awards for saying in private what you're not willing to stand up and stand by in public. you know, it's really easy in private to say the right thing.

it should be easy, but it's hard and seems almost impossible for republicans to do it in public. >> i mean, that's a private conversation among republicans that i still pick up a little bit of, less than i used to. they'd love to see chris christie do to trump what he did to rubio in 2016. there is no support in the party that is the fault of one group of people, and that's republicans. >> yes, that is the fault of republicans. but one thing that i hope -- i mean i know you paint a very true if depressing story about our democracy. one thing have i been seeing increasingly, especially since january 6th is that there are a lot of americans who their eyes have been opened at just how fragile democracy is and just how important things like voting rights are. just how dangerous some of the supreme court rulings that have come down that have eviscerated and trampled on the voting rights act. some of them, hopefully more are getting active. they're getting active. they're being motivated to do things like run for local

office. because this is the same thing that's happening at the local level to try to protect that, to try to push why good governance is important. and i think that has to be a virtue of the democratic party to counteract this. that they have to be -- >> that's right. >> the party of justice about getting everybody the right to the polls, about protecting these systems and explaining why they're so important in carrying on that work. i think that's really the only way you get to a place where you can combat this really -- this root that has dug in so deep. >> that's a perfect way to put it, this root. i think the thing that kim is getting at is voters are smarter. i mean, republicans are so brazen, and so malevolent, that you now have a democracy voter. does that give you some hope? >> it does. look, it gives me hope. i don't want to leave with a sense of pessimism. i think we need to be realistic about the challenges ahead. but it does give me hope there was a statistic in the census data that just came out about voters that i thought really it's illustrative of the challenge and the hope.

and the main reason, if you ask nonvoters why they didn't vote, the number one reason they gave, 26.5% of them said is because of they're too busy or conflicts with work or school. and so we all owe it to those voters to not make them choose because getting paid to work or voting. >> right. >> to not have to make those choices. and there is a lot that corporate america can do. there is a lot that democrats can do. there is a lot that the media can do to sort of alleviate that tension. because for many voters, these voter suppression laws -- >> the 26%. >> they're there for the 26%. so when you make a polling location a little further, when you make the long lines a little bit longer, what you're doing is making that 26%. >> you're giving them a permission structure to keep doing what they're doing, which republicans want. >> correct. >> i want to put this on paper, because i keep threatening to do this now that i have you at the table.

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that's for a reason, because if they vote, republicans can't win. >> right. this is one of the things that drives me crazy, when people say but voter suppression doesn't work, but voter suppression doesn't work. you can't say it doesn't work unless you ask the people who didn't vote why, didn't you vote? and when you look at the reasons they give, they don't say voter suppression. the places are too far. the lines are too long. i'm too busy. i don't have child care. what they're saying is the voter suppression has worked. >> i can't get an absentee ballot. they made it harder. i have to have a reason, correct. >> correct. >> when cleta mitchell says students shouldn't be able to roll out of bed and vote, what she is saying we haven't put enough friction. we haven't put enough barriers in place that i don't have enough time, i have to go to class. i have to go to work. >> it's young people who are deciding whether to vote democratic or stay home. and that's precisely what that's targeting.

and that's why republicans are winning. >> the other thing we solved in the break is how to save democracy. i mean, if you have a republican, for example, in liz cheney that says donald trump is a threat to democracy, you can then argue credibly that the only person that can save democracy is his democratic opponent and the incumbent president joe biden. republicans have run a vicious campaign about someone who was a threat to democracy. it would be a bear in the woods. do democrats have the stomach to articulate the specific and grave and immediate threat to democracy donald trump represents? >> look, i think they do. i think they talk about democracy. i think the competition of campaigns, as you know probably better than anyone at this table is a competition of what you think is going to move the electorate and move who. and so in a world in which you can run ads on republican position on guns you run their anti-choice agenda, there's just so many things competing for that. but i agree with you that the public is telling us the voters are telling us that they care about free and fair elections.

they care about january 6th. and i think it's really important that we all communicate on that. >> and the voters understand that if you don't have the majority on guns or abortion or anything else. >> no, they understand that that is the power that is within their reach. and they don't want to lose that. i think the democrats are afraid of saying democracy, what is that? what does that look look like? that's not a kitchen table issue. we need to appeal to moderates and all of that. i think a lot of is the democrats not getting out of their own way, but hopefully after several elections where the issue of democracy remained at the top of what voters talk about, they begin to focus more squarely on that. >> i feel like voters -- it's the perfect issue that ties their gut and head. they know if democracy is broken we won't see breakthroughs on issues they care about. >> someone once said to me about the filibuster in the senate, i'm like, why don't democrats shut down the senate when

mcconnell is in charge? this person said, mcconnell doesn't want to pass legislation. they don't want to pass bills. >> they don't want to govern. >> they just want power. the problem democrats have is they want to do stuff, they want to make people's lives better it's a fight and democracy is caught in the middle. >> we have to keep this going. that's exactly right. how trump keeps from the bottom of the barrel getting in his jabs and his punches. thank you both so much for being here at the table. mark elias and kim atkins. a conversation we'll pick up every week. there's nothing more important. another break for us. we'll be right back. another break for us we'll be right back. (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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