a week between our boston and new york baby batiks. so we're looking for corporate partners, toy companies, as well as individuals who want to host collection drives or shop from our wish lists, which are all on our website roomtogrow oregon. >> i certainly want to get involved myself. so, ladies, thank you so much for being here and helping us see some good news for a change, some good happening in the world. appreciate it. and that's going to do it for me today. "deadline white house" starts right now. hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. today there is exclusive brand new reporting that shows just why trump attorney evan corcoran could be the smoking gun witness in mounting any criminal obstruction of justice case against donald j. trump.

evidence emerging today in the guardian that in the crucial time between doj's subpoena and may of last year and the meeting between investigators and trump's legal team the following month, trump or his aides might have hidden classified documents from donald trump's own defense attorney from that stunning new reporting. quote, donald trump's lawyer told associates he was waved off from searching the former president's office where the fbi later found the most sensitive materials anywhere on the property. that lawyer, evan corcoran, recounted that several trump aides told him to search the storage room because that was where all the materials that had been brought from the white house at the end of trump's presidency ended up being deposited. corcoran found 38 classified documents in the storage room. he then asked whether he should search anywhere else but was steered away, he told associates. according to an inventory unsealed by a federal judge last year, the fbi found 27 classified documents along with dozens of empty folders with

classification markings on them in donald trump's office during that court authorized search of mar-a-lago back in august. you might be familiar with this photo showing some of the classified documents that were found in a container in trump's office with markings that suggest they contained incredibly sensitive material including intelligence obtained by human sources. here why it matters that corcoran never searched trump's office, quote, corcoran's previously unrecounted account as relayed to the guardian by two people flarl with the matter suggests he was materially misled as special counsel jack smith examines whether his incomplete search ozactually retained by trump to obtain classified documents. that new reporting is where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. nancy pelosi investigative

reporter and nbc contributor carroll lenning is back, and former u.s. attorney harry litman is back, and with me here at the name democratic strategist and policy director of program at hunter college. materially misled sounds like lied to a layman but sounds like it has legal significance as well. can you explain that to us? >> i thought we're really entering a phase, nicolle, we talked about this last week it's time to think about how it plays in court. it sounds like an absolute moment of criminality. they have the subpoena, the people from doj and fbi come down and they lied to them. now we have the finger pointing beginning, right? they have the piece of paper they take back and says we looked at everything. now we know evan corcoran is pointing at maybe nauta, maybe

donald trump, we don't know. and nauta is in the middle of this and he has now a very high end criminal defense attorney the trump organization supposedly paid for. and jack smith you can bet knows exactly what -- he doesn't need the path of voice he was misled or steered away. he's asked him who exactly told you that and he's been told, and the question is whether through nauta or directly it goes to trump, because does a good lawyer take the word of rob nauta saying are you going to look there or want it from trump himself? i think that is going to be the epicenter of the obstruction case. >> harry, we've been talking now for six straight days at the top of this hour about what feel

like criminal developments in the obstruction case, but someone said to think of it this way what is inside the boxes is the heart of the mishandling of classified documents case. and the moving of the boxes, the physical relocation of the boxes is at the heart of the obstruction of justice question. can you just take me inside what you think jack smith already knows about the first question, what was inside the boxes, and the second, the moving of the boxes? >> well, since they were gone when corcoran looked through them, i think he thinks, you know, there are 100 extra documents found when they did the search, and i would say that's the big heart but also what was in trump's desk the 27 some documents maybe even classified maybe he even showed to other people. smith is knowing, look, this stuff was here. thigh lied to us and told it wasn't when they were under subpoena. how did that happen? for example, did trump tell

nauta to move some boxes out, nauta took some stuff out, then move them back in, it's stuff in the search smith is zeroing in on where exactly were they june 3rd including ones we suspect were in trump's office and corcoran was told, you don't have to look at that stuff. so that's really concrete and knowledgeable hiding because in those 30 pages is corcoran telling trump you may not keep anything classified and obviously he did. >> you and i had a conversation about trump's long history of mishandling classified documents. when you separate the things in the boxes it's at the heart of the classified materials case and the movement is at the heart of the obstruction case. let me read those from a doj filing. counsel for the former president represented all the records that

had come from the white house came from one location, a storage room at the premises here at the storage room. and the boxes of records in the storage room were, quote, the remainder of repository of records from the white house. counsel later represented there were no other records stored in any other office space or location at the premises, that all available boxes were searched. so we talk around this a little bit, but the counsel represents donald trump. it's like the game of clue. we're out of other characters. who would have lied to evan corcoran? >> well, you know, as you know, nicolle, because we've discussed it quite a bit, there are a lot of lawyers in town who say they know how they would have done it if they had to search for classified records to comply with an fbi subpoena and the way to do that was ask their client where are all the possible places the materials could be?

it's not clear he had that direct conversation with donald trump although it's possible. i think i'd like to flip this on its head a little bit and say it's been clear for many, many months that jack smith is working towards making some charging decisions and is likely going to bring charges. if he were going to bring them, he would have to establish two things. one, that donald trump worked indirectly and directly to keep the government from getting those records. and second, that he knew what he was doing. in other words, he knew he had classified materials and that this wasn't like some mistake or, oops, i had am tissue boxes and they happen to have classification markings on them. so the two things are critical to bringing the kind of charges now and mentioned in government proceedings. and evan corcoran, what is it evan corcoran was told. sources have told to us over and over again he was consistently advised by all staff to donald

trump that the only place records were kept that had been shipped from the white house and the only place that records that might have classification markings could be were one in the same place, that storage closet inside a larger storage room where other items like vodka and pastry dough were kept, but in has closet were were wherethe documents could be. who told evan corcoran that? most lawyers say i would have asked my client, where else would we have looked? we don't know that donald trump directly told evan corcoran this, but jack smith is piecing together who told evan corcoran and who told those people. many, many staff advised corcoran that's the only place you need to look. >> and you're right, carol, the dot between whose mouth did it come out of and what corcoran represented to a grand jury or

jack smith has not been connect. we also have from donald trump's own mouth what else he thought he could do with the boxes in the storage room. let me play that. >> i can't imagine you ever saying bring me some of the boxes we brought back from the white house, i'd like to look at them. did you ever do that? >> i'd have to right to look at thel. there's nothing wrong with it. i don't have a lot of time but i would the right to do that. i would do that. remember this, this is the presidential records act. i have the right to take stuff. you know, that they ended up paying richard nixon i think $18 million for what he had. he did the presidential records act. i have the right to take stuff. i have the right to look at stuff. >> did you ever show those classified documents to anyone? >> not really. i would have the right to. >> what do you mean not really? >> thought that i can think of. let me just tell, i have the absolute right to do whatever i want with them. i have the right. >> there's no denial that he could have things moved around, just exactly the question the movement of the boxes.

there's no denial that he had a right to show them to whoever he wanted to. i mean the behavior that constitutes a criminal act is not behavior that trump is denying. his defense is i had the right to do it. >> i couldn't agree more, nicolle, that it's really important to listen to what donald trump said, but i also think it's important to remember how inconsistent he can be from time to time. and what's important to jack smith? what's important to jack smith is was donald trump advised by counsel, by aides, by other assistants, by even perhaps his white house staff going back all the way to 2020, and as he left in january 2021 and those boxes were being packed, was he advised and warned this stuff's classified, you can't take it? or when he got to mar-a-lago, if you have anything that's classified we need to put it in

this special folder and give it to the fbi when they come tomorrow, i think it's january 3rd. >> do you think the boxes had been checked and trump was told how to handle classified material? >> i think it was clearly checked before he left the white house and clearly checked after. we know from the same reporting from the guardian what corcoran told him. i want to flip it around once more. who could possibly issue the ultimate orders that would make nauta or corcoran you can look in the storage room, i think there's only one person here when a subpoena heb received in response to who they would take it on their shoulders. but i think smith absolutely when corcoran was in the grand jury and cipollone back when he left said who exactly what were the words, i think he knows this. and this reporting is from people who know corcoran but smith's knowledge is now more

direct and stitched up. otherwise the grand jury would still be sitting, and it isn't. >> right. so we had that conversation off the air that we're getting this information in incremental bites, which gives us the opportunity really and the privilege to analyze it with brilliant minds and people that have been following trump for years. but to harry's point this has all been presented. this has all been known and learned probably in more of a fell swoop, so what we're learning is way after jack smith learned it, but let me just -- with that stipulated, let me just drill down a little bit in what we're learning about the time line which i think everyone has always agreed is what's most important again from the guardian, in particular prosecutors have examined why trump order his valet, walt nauta to issue the boxes out of the storage room and usually where the boxes might have been taken. so this isn't a fact up in the

air anymore. we know this is a no-no. the movement of boxes has taken on added significance for prosecutors after they saw on surveillance tapes that boxes are returned to the storage room on june 2nd, the day before the justice department traveled to mar-a-lago to collect what corcoran had found, "the washington post" reported. it was also not clear when corcoran was laid off from searching other parts of mar-a-lago. it could be notable it came before the boxes were brought back to the storage room as it would raise questions as to whether he was held off while classified documents were moved pack. they have a lot of sources, right? there's been great reporting in "the washington post" and "the new york times" about walt nauta as a questionable and perhaps fraught narrator because he wasn't initially cooperating, but they've also got tapes. >> they do, and i want to go to something that was reported in "the washington post," and in "the washington post" it says details suggested greater

breadth and specificity to the instances of obstruction. i keyed in that language. being attorney but also for the lay person not an attorney, to the voter it seems when you at the breadth and specificity of these actions, there was intentionality around moving these documents, making sure some people saw them and some people didn't. >> including his own lawyers. >> including his own lawyer. you can talk about plausible deniability. >> which you don't even have. >> which you don't even have. to me what the voter sees here is a former president by his own language says i'm entitled to see stuff, i'm entitled to read thuf, and frankly by his actions and language i'm entitled to show people that i care about that i want to see it, that i want them to see this information, they're entitled to see it too because i said so. and to me that is disqualifying

on its face to hold a public office. because at that point you're not a public servant. having said that, it does seem that the hole he's digging for himself is deeper and deeper and deeper as more and more of these sources come out because they're realizing, like, i thought i knew this guy, i apparently didn't know this person because there's evidence there's consistent sort of exclusion from this inner circle whatever that is, but i'm also in jeopardy of going to jail. and i'm not doing it -- >> and you know the way i think did it way you do and i don't think i've ever uttered this sentence before, bill barr. >> that's exactly right. and i think more to harry's earlier points he used the word -- and i've got to go back to the glasses -- knowledgeable, concrete and knowledgeable. and the more we get to that, and the more we see who was involved

and again how many people he excluded but who he did include in that circle, i mean there's real peril for him in here. >> again, we'll discard bill barr's uncertainty he faces grave criminal exposure and donald trump's defense you can do whatever with classified materials. take me down the center path, harry litman. what we have is a target of an investigation, right, who is describing the conduct of something within his authority. the criminal code is the criminal code. it's clearly not, but tell me if -- and of course jack smith could decide not to charge, not to prosecute. but if he decides to charge trump in this case, do you envision multiple acts of obstruction like we saw in the mueller report with the nexus to the crime and imagine underlying crimes as well? tell me when bill barr says he faces grave criminal exposure and the government has a strong case, what does he see?

>> i envision at least two and now there's talk of a third, one involving, you know, taking it away without authority. one involving obstruction, and one potentially involving showing it to others and espionage. but to me it's the strongest case and the strongest aspect of the strongest case. and what bill barr sees is exactly this obstruction right after the point of having received the subpoena. and whether smith, by the way, phrases it in terms of three or four different acts and possibly conspiracy, by the way, depending on people like nauta where one count is sort of incidental, it's a matter of proof but not of sentence. so in very simple terms he knows at this point he must return it. he's told repeatedly at this point that he cannot keep anything that's classified. he knows he has stuff that's classified including in his desk, and he orders people -- that's the dot, dot you referred

to, and everything we're talking about whether he could magically declassify only goes to what's in his minds. and when you have lawyers saying from january to june of course i told him he can't do this, of course i told him he has to return it, then his fanciful scenarios really don't matter at all in terms of beyond a reasonable doubt did he know what he was doing as well. >> and we know, carol, from your great investigative deep dives in your book projects and the storose you break there's always a mountain filled with stories of stuff we don't know about. and to me in gnat flashing category is jack smith's communications with the liv golf tour. >> i think one -- i want to tread carefully here because

what i'm sensing from jack smith's work there's a meticulousness and no nonsense to his work. at the end of the day maybe no big fish came back in the net and what you had was what you had at the start which was basically a series of acts that looked like indirectly and directly trying to conceal classified records from the government when you are served with a subpoena. and as harry said possibly conspiring with others to conceal it. however, i think it's important for jack smith to check the boxes of why -- why did donald trump want to keep this classified material. and why did he say he could show it to people, he could carry it around? why as we've reported at "the washington post" is there evidence to suggest he almost used it a little bit as bragging rights and possibly showed it to

donors? so jack smith's got to go down the road of figuring out were there any financial or personal or business benefits to the way in which he had access to this material? it doesn't mean the answer's going to be yes, but it has to be plumbed. it has to be checked out. >> last word. >> i think that's absolutely right, the why is important because i do think about that. if you had all this information it is bragging rights. look at all the work i did in the white house, look at the attacks i ordered or prevented. >> look at the photo. >> exactly right. look at me hugging this guy, nobody else can hug this guy. all of that could be used to solicit donations, certainly to solicit votes in terms of narrative but certainly to get donations or get favors, and we don't know that. and that's the challenge with donald trump. we never know. it's all obfuscated, all among a

small group of people who will never be accountable or attempt to not be accountable to the american people. >> carol leonnig, harry litman, and basil inching along in this incredibly deliberate and opaque investigation. >> when we come back, one of the most recognizable faces of the january 6th mob is just out of prison and showing no signs of remorse and even trying to cash in on his remorselessness for his crimes. he'll have a chance to talk to former fbi director jim comey on how we handle as a country unreformed and unrepettant criminals and the rise of violent, domestic terrorism and about his new book "crime thriller" inspired by actual events in comey's career. as the nation's head of law enforcement it is called "central park west" and i have read and he'll talk about how heish craft said his strong

female lead. and missteps in calculations made by fox news in their dominion defecation case and how some of those same fox executives are also at the helm of handling to new defamation case from smartmatic. all those after a quick break. don't go anywhere. a quick break. don't go anywhere. sadie's getting her plan ready for a big trip. travel pass, on. nice iphone 14 pro! cute couple. trips don't last forever. neither does summer love. so, sadie's moving on. apple music? check. introducing myplan. the first and only unlimited plan to give you exactly what you want, so you only pay for what you need. and get iphone 14 pro on us when you switch. it's your verizon. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. with the money we saved, we tried electric unicycles. i think i've got it! doggy-paddle! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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tourists tourists that turn into scientists. tourists taking photos that are analyzed by ai. so researchers can help life underwater flourish.

♪ we've stripped all over this mountain. i love it when he strips for me. i strip on sick days. breathe right instantly relieves nighttime nasal congestion. daytime, too. helping you breathe easier for up to 12 hours. breathe right. strip on. another sentencing today for one of the insurrectionists who stormed the u.s. capitol on january 6th. pauline bower who called for police officers that day to bring out then-house speaker nancy pelosi so the mob could, quote, hang her, she say

sentenced to 27 months in prison today. her lawyers telling the judge she deeply regrets her actions that day. another january 6th insurrectionists showing no signs of remorse after serving 29 months in prison, that's jacob tansley, aka the qanon shaman, the red, white, and blue painted face of the january 6th attack is trying to profit off the insurrection. he's still pushing anti-government conspiratorial views and says they're stronger now than even the views he had before january 6th. what do we do as a country with criminals like that now that trump and fellow republican candidate ron desantis are considering publicly pardons for the insurrectionists? joining aats the table fbi director jim comey, the author of a new crime novel "central park west," which we'll talk about in a minute. i was thinking and i said this to you in the break you would be in your tenth year as fbi director if trump hadn't fired

you because he didn't see to it to -- you would have presided over an extraordinary shift where we've got your successor chris wray saying domestic terrorism being by far the biggest threat with white supremacy being an umbrella. >> pushing the fbi to focus resources on it and push the fbi culturally. the fbi is a collection of people who don't want to do anything wrong. they investigate about getting close to a first amendment. if you're going to doon an investigation of course you need to respect that line but you need to look closely at those crossing that line without fear someone on the republican hill on the committee is going to call at you and yell at you. you have to do your job, and

that's a leadership challenge for the director to push his folks to do the right thing here. >> do you from the outside see he's doing that? >> i can't tell really what he's doing from the outside because he's very low visibility. and i guess i'd understand why he'd make choices like that. i worry bit when i don't hear the director or attorney general out speaking about the importance of these cases, why the january 6th cases matter so much. it's about general deterrence. i worry sometimes some rank and file of the fbi don't fully understand why a misden d meaner case matters so much. what matters is a shock wave has to be sent that says don't you dare, don't you ever interfere in our constitutional process, and that's a shock wave that has to be sent by leadership talking about it to their troops. >> there's been a lot of news accounts doj wasn't seriously looking at donald trump specifically until cassidy hutchinson's testimony and the congressional probe into january

6th. one, does that ring true to you? and two, why do you think that is in. >> the answer is i don't know. i would certainly hope they were looking all up and down the stack of january 6th long before there was public testimony, but i don't know. i can't tell from the outside. >> you used to have the position the best way to handle trump was vote him out. we did that. and last week issued a bulletin if you read it everybody except republicans are at risk of domestic violent extremism intersecting with violence. it didn't work in terms of eliminating the threat of radicalized people who would adhere to an ideology consistent with things trump says or tweets or truths or whatever he uses to communicate. do you think jack smith has evidence of criminality? >> based on the facts i can gather from watching the media it would sure seem especially the mar-a-lago case is the most serious. i didn't know anything about that obviously earlier in this

series of investigations, but that looks like the one where he could be in the most jeopardy, and if the facts are there, jack smith ought to bring that case. i never thought the threat would go away if we voted on donald trump but imagine what the world would be like if we'd not voted for donald trump, if we didn't vote for him in our country today? >> as we see him on top of the republican field in the primary, what are your concerns about another trump presidency? >> well, he represents a serious threat to the rule of law in this country. and anyone with eyes to see can see that. people criticize cnn for the town hall, and i actually thought it was good the american people could see this is what would be on the ballot in 2024, someone that promises to do things antithetical to a constitution based rule of society. and i think he threatens that society, and the stakes if he's the candidate would be extraordinarily high. >> what do you think the appropriate way to sort of understand that threat is? what do you think the balance is

to be had between platforming, the lies, and the disinformation. you had his son tweeting some deep fakes about his primary opponents. have you spent time delving into the policy questions at the moment? >> i have. i'm a fiction writer. yoodo think donald trump is the leader of a cult radicalizing his followers. it's so hard for someone that's been defrauded and radicalalized to walk away. i get why some of his followers want to hold onto january 6th because the images hold onto people are fool, look what you did. and that's too painful for people to deal and the memory hold goes deeper into the colt. it's an enormous challenge. the most important thing is that we as a free society use our

votes to make sure the cult leader is not returned to a position where he can really do damage to the country. >> what explains elected republicans like mitch mcconnell saying he'd vote for him again? >> people that like their jobs better than the alternative. they don't love the idea of being a cabinet sales -- >> liz cheney, a novelist, unemployed. >> there are people, quality public servants, democrats and republicans ought to be people prepared to lose their jobs where the job is rented not owned, and we have a lot of people in government on the republican side who have compromised everything in order to keep a job, and that's sad but that's just the reality. >> i wrote three novels after working on the palin campaign because politics became deeply disillusioning to me. what drove you to a creative process? >> i wasn't going to do it. i resisted the idea, and the editor of my second nonfiction book said, hey, have you

considered writing nonfiction? you write scenes well, and i'd say, dude, these aren't scenes, those are my life. life imitating art imitating life. and i am married to an amazing person as you know and she has great story vision, and she imagined this particular story and said you ought to give it a shot. and so i did and found it addictive, and it's what i want to do when i grow up. >> i want to ask you about the intersectionality. i think one of the most memorable things you wrote about and george stephanopoulos and the interview you did in your last book during the transition -- it's sick i remember this, but during the transition when you went up to brief trump it felt like -- our thing, our family so you end up writing about a mob investigation, prosecution that also feels related. i'm going to press you an that. we have to sneak in a quick

break. you'll stick around? >> yes, of course. >> we'll be pack to talk about the book, art imitating life, imitating art. don't go anywhere. t. don't go anywhere.

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♪ tourists tourists that turn into scientists. tourists taking photos that are analyzed by ai. so researchers can help life underwater flourish. ♪ writing two "the new york times" best sellers about his experiences working as a prosecutor and fbi director for donald trump, jim comey is now trying his hand in the world of fiction. his debut novel "stral park west," a crime novel is a political crime thriller that

takes readers deep inside the real life experiences of prosecutors, in this case a mom and investigators navigating modern politics and the mob as they look to solve a murder. drawing from comey's early years prosecuting the gambino crime family in the early 1990smism i'll always sensitive to not give away plot points, so tell us about your strong female lead. she's a wonderful female character. she's a mom and has a relationship with her mom, and she's tough and doing things that create sort of the tension in the book. there's some danger. >> yeah, she's great. and she's inspired by the strong, smart, tall women who have surrounded me my whole life. i have four daughters and a shorter but also awesome wife. >> and one of them is a prosecutor. >> yep, and the protagonist is inspired by my oldest daughter who when i was writing this was in the very same courtroom i prosecuted joe gambino in when she was 3 years old.

she was in the same courtroom prosecuting jeffrey epstein's partner in abusing young girls. so it would make complete sense the protagonist in this book be noa carlton, this strong smart woman trying to find truth and justice in a slippery environment. >> i'm not sure having read it if you believe in the black and white nature of good versus evil and good prevailing. >> yeah, i don't. i believe all people are a combination and different measures of good and bad and that sometimes what you know to be true doesn't allow you to achieve justice, and we've setup our justice system to have hurdles and procedures that make it hard, and it should be hard to prove sometimes things that you know in your heart are true, so sometimes the bad guys get away. i'm not going to say what happens here, but sometimes it's unsatisfying. >> and i'm not saying the novel is unsatisfying, but it is a very nuanced portrait of the rule of law at a time when

people see very clearly the republican party has failed to hold someone like donald trump accountable, so they're pinning all their hopes on the rule of law, on merrick garland, on fani willis. do you think they will do that and hold him accountable? >> i think the rule of law has passed our national stress test in general. you don't but a lot of people forget the grate test was passed in courts at the federal level, city level and state level after the lies of the 2020 election. when you step in a courtroom you better bring it if you're going to make an allegation, and are our system held. i think it'll hold again. the manhattan d.a. case i don't know what will happen, but that is the rule of law and i'm so happy the american people get to see it. i hope they offer us transparency if they decide not to charge him, but either way the system is working to seek accountability.

>> that's floated though, right? there's almost this overcorrection. you sought to provide transparency in my view is an overreaction to the right being eager to see hillary prosecuted, but you still get guff. do you think there's some flier on a door at doj that says whatever you do, don't explain yourself? >> i worry -- they say generals are always fighting the last war. i hope that's not going to happen because even if you -- you wouldn't want to be me, i was part of a long tradition of the department of justice offering transparency when the people deserved it. we did it when michael brown was murdered in ferguson, missouri. when the right was accusing the u.s. of poisoning the tea party. we offered the details to explain why at the end and that's in the interest of justice generally. i hope they remember that, and if the charges are justified that they bring charges, but otherwise tell you what you did and why and what your thinking was. >> how much peace to you have about everything that happens

between 15 and the years after you were fired by trump and then investigated and harassed and hauled up to the hill? i mean do you have peace? >> i do. and not just because i got a refund on that irs audit. >> that's right. the irs, trump, congress. did durham look -- >> you're forgetting they made bar complaints about me. yeah, so i've turned out fine. i have peace i think because my identity is not based on my jobs. it's based on being a husband and father and now grandfather. and so i was lucky to hold jobs. i got the chance to serve in them, but they were never me in the same sense, and so i think i was able to separate myself from some of the criticism and the praise. i don't want to overindex on either of those and be a happy person. i'm a happy person. some radio hosts asked me some time ago why aren't you in therapy and i'm married to a

trained therapist, but it's because it's not those things but who i am and who i'm with. >> that's a practice. and i think there are a lot of people who see one of the things that trump did was run out people who should have been serving their country. and i wonder if there's any part of you that thinks if i wasn't writing novels i'd be trying to protect the country from this rising skuj of domestic violent terrorism. is there any part of you that wishes you were serving your country? >> oh, sure because i love my country. i love the people of the fbi. they're good, honest people. i miss being with them. i don't miss the politicians, going up on capitol hill and some of the naup sense, but i miss the mission a lot, sure. >> i mentioned your book to a very prom independent democratic last week and i was going to say you should read it, and she said i bet it is good, but i still have bad feelings about what

happened to hillary. what do you say to those folks? >> i don't -- look, i get why people were upset about decisions i made, the fbi made. honestly sometimes i'm frustrated so it's my fault tens of thousands of e-mails that were produced -- >> i think they blame you for the timing of the transparency. >> well, but, again, when i learned of those things in late october of 2016 what would you have me do? and it feels sometimes like joining the referee call on the last three seconds. >> i'm an irrational basketball fan so i do that, too, but do you ever read between the timing? it was october 25th, right? >> october 28th, 27th when i was briefed on it, sure many times in my mind. but if you go back in time to that period there were two choices and both of them sucked. both were doors to hell, but one

of them sucked less than the other, and those were doors were checked. but i think that decision will stand the test of time. >> you look at disastrous how trump was for ukraine, for democratic allies and people who think he would have handed -- he basically said it in the town hall the war would end in two days. when you think everything trump has wrought do you think i could have waited two hours or two week snz. >> you don't want the fbi director making decisions on who he or god willing she, who someone thinks should be elected president of the united states. i want someone to be elected separate from that based on the annals of the institution. do you want a future fbi director to say you know what i

think he should be president and do this or that, i think that's the path of destruction of the institution. >> i feel the strains of all this gray that being faithful to the institution you love means helping or creating a climate where a leader you loathe ascends to power, and certainly some of that attention and pain of the gray area is what you write about. i think when you come out of politics especially when it's a painful exit fiction is sort of a place for it and certainly pour it on the page. >> yeah. because that's what i've seen. i've seen a lot of gray. i've lived in gray. i've been a lawyer and leader in gray. sometimes people perceive me he's really black and white. >> i said that about you today. i said he'll answer all our questions because there's one truth. i think you have that reputation of earnestly answering questions in black and white. but the way you see the rule of law is very clearly shades of gray. >> yeah, it's imperfect because we're all imperfect, and it's a system made up of people. >> thank you so much for being

here. i know you don't make the rounds very often, so i'm glad you took the time out to do it. >> it's a treat to be with you. >> thank you so much, my friend. the book is called "central park west." you can buy it right now or read it right now. a strong female lead is the draw as we've been discussing. up next for us the first major test for the deal reached over the weekend, the the dramatic and historic one between president joe biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy. will the house gop mess it up? we'll ask that question next. we'll ask that question next (wheezing)

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i feel very good about it. i've spoken with a number of the members. i spoke to mcconnell. i spoke to a whole bunch of people. and it feels good. we'll see when the vote starts. and look, one of the things that i hear some of you guys saying is why doesn't biden say what a good deal it is, why would he say what a good deal it is before the votes. do you think that will help get it passed? no. that is why they don't bargain very well. >> that is president biden yesterday on the historic debt ceiling deal he managed to hammer out with kevin mccarthy. the house rules committee is debating the compromise bill, first major hurdle the deal faces. far right members of the gop have signaled that they will oppose the bill. joining our conversation is charlie sexton. i feel like the president might

have been channeling what you had to say on friday. but my thought in watching this is that he didn't just strike a deal with the republican leader, he have struck a deal with the leader of the republican insurgency. feel are missing the part that mccarthy represents the people that disimbued him anyway. >> it is remarkable because the danger was very, very real. normally you go through this dance and you come up with a deal. i think the danger was greater this time because of the incentive structure on the right and the nature of the house majority right now. joe biden is being very smart in not gloating about all this. in some way this is better than a win for him because it avoids a massive defeat. just think about the counternarrative, imagine if we would are gone into a default, imagine if this would have pushed the country into

recession, what that would have meant for him. now he comes out of this with a deal, avoids the default, avoids that particular danger to the economy. and now the narrative shifts very cleanly and clearly to what is going on the republican side. if this goes sideways, it is not going to be his fault, it will be the fault of the taliban 20 and the house freedom caucus. so not a bad weekend for joe biden who now -- friday i was saying that he should use the bully pulpit. he chose to play the insider game and apparently he is pretty good at that. >> yeah, i was also thinking and i know that nothing about politics is the same from when i work order campaigns, but in the old days this would cause either leader's strong leading ratingo old days this would cause either leader's strong leading rating to surge for the rare reasons you just articulated.

ability to play an inside game and get the best thing for the country which is that we don't default. how important is it to be the first one out of the gate to tell the story and drive the narrative? >> well, at this point the narrative will be determined on the house floor and in the committee that you just referenced. and we haven't played this out. what happens with kevin mccarthy. kevin mccarthy had three major challenges, to come up with a deal, to come up with the votes, make sure the deal passes, and then to survive the blowback. and quite frankly, we don't know how that will play out because there is nothing in the dna of the modern republican party that will be okay with a deal that is perceived as a win or something good for joe biden. so right now it looks like they pulled this off, we'll avoid the default, but i always sort of look at the horizon, what is going on grass roots, what will

we hear from mar-a-lago, what kind of rhetoric is out there. and there is this vast industry on the right which is deeply invested in stoking the fires of outrage. we have been betrayed, we need to be, you know, more aggressive, we're in the midst of a campaign. and so right now kevin mccarthy is looking like he is surviving it, looks like they are going through the motions. but check back in a few months because again the incentive structure on the right is not to cut deals with joe biden, not to say what a savvy negotiator he is. and by the way notice the cognitive dissonance. they are saying something along the lines of we were outsmarted by this guy who can't find his own pants. well, which is it? he outsmarted you because he is so savvy or he is the guy who is senile that is not up for the job. and right now, the republicans are dealing with a very mixed message, aren't they. >> yeah. and both can't be true.

this is what punch bowl reported kevin mccarthy said, i asked mccarthy about how he would describe his interactions with biden during the negotiations. quote, very professional, very smart, very tough at the same time. i don't think that there is another compliment that you could fit into a seven word sentence. charlie is not going anywhere. you will stick around. and i want to tell our viewers that tonight at 8:00, chris hayes will talk to the top democrat in the house hakeem jeffries, a key player in getting this deal passed. but up ahead for us, the next big defamation case against fox news from smartmatic, big hour of news still to come for us. don't go anywhere. t go anywhere. (vo) if you've had thyroid eye disease for years

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it says technology was used to rig elections in venezuela, it is now in the, quote, dna of every vote tabulating company software and system. >> one source says the key point to understand is that the smartmatic system has a book door -- back door that allows it to be mirrored and monitored allowing a real time understanding of how many votes will be needed to gain an electoral advantage. >> all i'm wondering is if the lady who talked to the wind told her that. hi again, it is 5:00 in morning. dominion voting systems lawsuit against fox news may have settled, but fox's defamation troubles are far from over.

still looming large is the $2.7 billion lawsuit that has been filed by election technology and software company smartmatic. and the company was only used in los angeles county during the 2020 presidential election, but it became a target of fox's smears and conspiracies in the aftermath. new reporting in the "new york times" shines the light on the missteps and igh school miscalculations made by fox news. from the new reporting, the dominion case resulted in one of the biggest legal and business debacles in the history of murdoch's empire, an of large of embarrassing discldisclosures. largest known settlement in a defamation suit.of large of embarrassing disclosures. largest known settlement in a defamation suit.

and also benching of the star tucker carlson. when pretrial rulings went against the company, fox did not pursue a settlement in any real way. executives were then caught flat footed as dominion's court filings included internal fox messages that made clear how the company chased a trump loving audience that preferred his election lies. the same lies that helped feed the january 6 capitol riots. as more and more damaging revelations became public, fox news realized it was best to settle, which it did in one of the largest defamation settlements ever. smartmatic's suit can now build on the evidence produced in the dominion case to press its own considerable claims. the lawsuit alleges there rudy giuliani and sydney powell created a story and fox defendants joined the conspiracy to defame and disparage smart

matt tick. and it turned neighbor against neighbor. and it led a mob to attack the capitol. they cared not the damage their story caused to smartmatic, its officers and employees and the country. last month fox agreed to hand over more documents to smartmatic. meanwhile the issues for fox keep mounting. "new york times" writes that in the weeks since the settlement and carlson's ouster, primetime ratings have dropped though fox does remain number one in cable news. a new plaintiff sued most recently a former homeland security official. her lawyer said in an interview that the dominion case signals that there is a path. fox news still in hot water over its 2020 election falsehoods is where we begin the hour with our favorite reporters and friends -- mike schmidt is here,

he share as by line on that reporting. and also former u.s. attorney joyce vance a back. donny deutsch is also at the table. he is the host of the on brand pod cost. and charlie sykes is still with us. mike, you name names. you put this legal strategy that resulted in nearly a billion dollar settlement at the feet. explain. >> i think that what struck us is that when you took a step back, it wasn't just the amount of money they had to pay which was the largest known settlement in a defamation case. but it was the fact that they find themselves in the same place that they didn't want to be in the aftermath of the election. in the days after the election, because they had called arizona for biden, they see their ratings go down. they see the consequences of that. they see them going to newsmax.

maria bartiromo finds a way back with the viewers through sydney powell. and it was heading down that path that they found themselves in this defamatory territory. but it is not just the defamation that last cost them here. they had their reputation with all these internal messages further sullied by the disclosures that came out in the past few months. and they lost tucker carlson in part because of what was found during the discovery process in this when dominion got a hold of these internal communications. and on top of that, the ratings are in a weaker spot and they find themselves fighting with newsmax for their viewers. so that is just -- whether they had the completely right strategy or not, at the end of

the day he was in charge of the ship and that was the result. >> and he fired a lawyer who wasn't as interested in this strategy, replaced him with someone. and they were going to go to the supreme court. tell us about that. >> their argument was that they would eventually be right on the law, that they may lose at the district court level but they just have to sort of tough it out and that ultimately the supreme court would side with them and they would be okay. >> which part, on the falsity, actual malice? all of it? >> they thought that they could hide behind the first amendment and the supreme court would go along with the legalees of that. what changes for them is in february when the text messages come out. because at that point, the public reaction was greater than they thought it was going to be. and they realize that jury in

delaware was going to have an ability to stick a price on a district court loss todominion. and that even though fox thought the damages that dominion had were overstated, that they will be hit with a billion dollar judgment. and that was going to be too much for their stock price. even if they were going to win two, three, four, five years later, it would be too damaging to the stock price in the years to have a billion dollar judgment hanging over their head. and that is what pushes them to settle. >> joyce, what happens is that they lose -- and i take the thinking for what it is. that they might have lost at these levels, but they believe that it would be overturned by the supreme court and they might be right. we'll never know. but they lost on the law early fast and decisively. they loud on news worthiness of the claims. they lost so much that all a

jury was going to have to do was decide if they acted with actual malice. tell me how you how says their legal strategy. >> this is some sophisticated reporting on a nuanced legal strategy issue that i think is tough to pull off frankly in newspaper reporting, but it is very much on point here because what happens is early on, there is a legal strategy. and like you say, we won't know how the supreme court would have ultimately ruled. the neutral reportage theory which is the notion that they were relying on, that they were reporting on important issues, and so they were entitled do it as long as they didn't stray too far into embracing one side or the other, you know, we won't know what the streak wouldhe su would have ultimately said. it might not have worked. on the other hand though, it could have worked but for these damaging factual disclosures. by the time discovery in this

case was over and trial was approaching, if you looked up reckless disregard for truth in a legal dictionary, that is the standard in a defamation case, there is literally a picture of what fox news was doing in its reporting on dominion and smartmatic following the election. this is literally by definition this is this notion of reckless disregard for truth. both that they knew it was false and that it was actually false. and as you say, the tipping point here for fox should have been when summary judgment was granted against them in part because the judge looked at all the evidence and said there is no doubt that everything that fox was putting on its airwaves about these companies was false. that should have been a real signal that it was time to settle. >> and there is a great anecdote in the story about rupert murdoch's testimony. what is amazing, and in

republican politics, there is -- when are you in the bunker, we always keep digging. that expression i think was made for republicans who only have shells when they are in political holes. but after lawyers confronted murdoch showing he knew the claims were false, he admitted that some fox hosts appear to have endorsed stolen election claims which is the legal standard. that appeared to have undermined fox's defense. then told murdoch afterward that he thought the depo had gone well. mr. murdoch pointed a finger at the dominion lawyer and said, quote, i think he would strongly disagree with that.maamazing, t were losing. >> murdoch, he is 90 something years old, all he has is his legacy at this point. you just wonder how even it got to this point where he didn't

just say make this go away. >> before the deposition. >> like this is all he's got at this point. he has his -- like human behavior. he has everything. all he's got to do is lose at this point. how he allowed himself personally to be put in that position and be humiliated. all along that fox let this go, just from a personal behavior point of view hard to explain. >> and i want to bring charlie in on all this because i think we feel each other's pain on this. but the lawyers in charge of the smartmatic legal strategy? >> i'm not sure if it is the same outside lawyer that is in charge of the smartmatic strategy. but rupert murdoch has gone through everything in business, but fox is a place that has dealt with scandal, whether sexual harassment are on if you

look deeper into the murdoch empire, the stuff with the phone hacking. and so this is an institution that understands what happens when there aren't controls in place and things go awry. and it didn't seem like there was any of that dna that had seeped into the system around these things to be sort of guardrails for them when this stuff was going on. >> such a good point, charlie, because the legal sort of stubbornness replaces the political survival skills that were the hallmark of fox news that i was more familiar with when i was an active republican. >> well, i had the same reaction in realtime that donny had, like how could you not settle this, why would you let it go to on trial, why would you allow rupert murdoch to go through the deposition. there is a certain dynamic that if something is absolutely

unthinkable for a company like fox, they won't tolerate it and in the end they did settle. it feels -- again, i'm not a lawyer here. but it feels as if the smartmatic case has a similar kind of inevitability to it. they had to know the moment that they settled with dominion that in effect that was also setting the table to settle with smartmatic because that lawsuit has very similar feel. it follows the same roadmap. you have the same discovery, the same emails, the same embarrassment, the same questions. all over again. and so if rupert murdoch sitting in his penthouse, you know, thinking about his legacy wanted things to go away, it is not enough to have the dominion lawsuit go away, he has to do the same thing with smartmatic. so the question is how many zeros come after that first number. because if he is not going to go through the dominion lawsuit, why would he subject himself and

his company and family and stockholders and board to a smartmatic trial. i don't see that happening. >> let's me show you how -- i think because we focused on dominion for so long and we knew from our own reporting from that there was a lot of material that remained redacted. but we don't know how much of their internal communications intermixed their smears, their known falsities about dominion and smartmatic. play some of wh broadcast. >> president's lawyers say it started with cuban money and assistance with smartmatic software. >> you can believe it? >> there is much to understand about smartmatic which owns

dominion. >> does smartmatic own dominion? >> no. we are competitors. >> they are not the same company. all of that is inaccurate and i guess the legal questions will be about whether they were broadcast -- whether they were known falsities ahead of the publication of those comments. >> again, it has already been adjudicated that there were known falsities in the dominion lawsuit and it seems easy to imagine, seems very easy to me to imagine the smartmatic lawyers could almost cut and paste some of that with the clip that you just played. so the question is now how much and what the timing is. but to donny's point, human nature being what it is, why would they want to go through all of this. and of course this is not going to play out in the context of the presidential campaign. and as michael pointed out, fox is in exactly the position they did not want to be in after the

2020 election. so they are getting it from both directions right now. and the only way to make the pain stop is to come up with some kind of a settlement. >> that is the first revelation i think from the first disclosures of the discovery process we learned about, how driven by the stock price tucker carlson's editorial programming decisions were. i think one of the first publicly released communications, i don't remember if they were text messages or emails, were about. look at the stock price, get rid of the fact checkers. and then the three way thread with laura ingraham, sean hannity and tucer carlson about the decision desk not being on their side. their decision desk was right and they were right first. but the war against the truth is what is revealed in the discovery. how do you sort of assess this ending up where they were trying to avoid dynamic?

>> what i am curious about is does this affect this brand at the end of the day. >> what do you think? >> i think no. sadly, sadly, no. i think that the fox audience is so connected and they are so living in their own world that i don't know as we head forward, this is kind of like the sad tale of this, is does it change the math for them. does it change how they are seen in the news. as i was watching those cartoon characters, i mean, it is almost a parity of itself. you can't believe it. and, yes, this hurts fox, their ratings have gone down, but losing tucker carlson, advertisers have come back. >> so interesting. so they may be making it up in advertising. >> i don't think it is the business debacle for them. they lost glenn beck and they went on. tucker carlson did not have one

mainstream national advertiser. so i think at some point these guys just wear out their welcome. ratings don't matter if you can't get advertisers. and i think for fox, i don't think that this changes much for them and i think that is the sad thing. three quarters of a billion dollars is a lot of money, but i don't think going forward that they will be approaching things dramatically different. it is just who they are. >> one person who i know quite often disagrees with that, and it is dinesh d'souza. in march he was talking about tucker playing all the 1/6 security footage, refusing. he said fox is not a fully rereliable place. they don't care. they want fox to be able to sell ads to nissan, so they have all kinds of motives including feuding with trump, motives for blocking the kind of coverage that occurs. that is the sad reality. where do you think as we sort of head into -- we'll have a republican primary and the mud

slinging between desantis and trump is already clearly posting disinformation, things taken down for not being accurate. where do you think fox stands? >> this is what is interesting. because there are cracks in the maga world. you are seeing that in dinesh d'souza who also put out a blatantly racist tweet with no blowback from much of the right. but things have shifted a bit. because fox may still be on brand, but there are other brands that are competing with it and that will cannibalize its audience. and you have desantis creating its own dynamic. and you're seeing other splits down in texas where you have a republican house that just impeached the maga friendly attorney general ken paxton there. so there are lines of division that we haven't really seen over the last several years, not between normal republicans and

trumpist republicans, but within that tribe itself. and so that creates a very different and somewhat unpredictable dynamic because we don't know exactly how it will play out because you have trump loyalists who are suddenly attacking other former trump loyalists in various different ways. and there is also a point at which a movement becomes a fight over the spoils. right now that audience are the spoils and there is a lot of media vultures who would like a piece of that. >> so interesting. i think you're right. there is no more fight between pro trump and anti-trump republicans. it is between pro trump and more trump republicans. it will be fun to watch. mike, thank you for your reporting. joyce vance, donny deutsch, charlie sykes, thanks for starting us off. when we come back, ron desantis is trying to score political points whenhe bashes the

military for being too woke. we'll be joined by a special panel of military experts for that conversation next. plus we'll discuss the ongoing damage to the u.s. military being caused by another extreme right wing republican who would rather hurt the pentagon's ability to fight a real war just so he can wage a culture war of his own. and for the first time drone strikes on residential buildings in moscow, possible sign of an escalating conflict between ukraine and russia. it comes amid relentless attacks by kremlin forces on the ukrainian capital of kyiv. identical twins bethany and stephanie both struggled with cpap for their sleep apnea. but stephanie got inspire, an implanted device that works inside the body. there's no reason to keep struggling. inspire. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com.

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on almost any other day of the calendar year, you might feel comfortable just wave being them away, chalking up ron desantis' latest comments as inane, pandering. but it was memorial day. and so for that reason what he said felt grotesque even for him. >> the military that i see is different from the military i served in. i see a lot of emphasis now on political ideologies, things like gender pronouns, i see a lot about things like dei. and i think that that has caused recruiting to plummet, i think it has driven off a lot of warriors and i think morale is low. >> it gets worse if you can believe it. desantis who kicks off his first presidential campaign trip today

trained wokism as some existential threat to america. >> is right now the time for ron desantis to run for president, why? >> because everyone knows if i'm the nominee, i will beat biden and i will serve two terms and i will be able to destroy leftism in this country and leave woke ideology on the dust bin of history. >> woke mob did not storm the u.s. capitol. woke mob did not shoot up uvalde. a woke mob does not represent the threat that domestic violence extremism. but okay, ron, you go get the woke mob. entering our conversation, lieutenant colonel mcgrath, and also jeremy bash, and paul rycoff from veterans of america,

host of the independent americans podcast. i'm so glad -- i don't know where to start. i'll give you the table prerogative. what is wrong with ron desantis' words? >> it won't win him a general election, that is for sure. i think that the gop has become farther and farther right. the middle seems to be gone. >> is this right the anti-military? >> i think it is popular in the far right of this country. any institution that they view as woke is popular to attack. i think it is a losing general election strategy. >> is the military woke? >> no, the military is progressive in the sense that it is evolving. we talked about this last week with regard to tommy tuberville. it sounds like they want to create the army of the confederacy. yeah, the army now allows in women and it is no longer all white and it is moving forward and that seems to be what they are attacking. i think they are making a really big political miscalculation by attacking the military. they are not going after joe biden, they are going after the military and that is one of the few institutions that has high

popularity rating. i think they are continuing to drive independents away. >> and just to be clear, there is no woke party. i think this is a politically complicated argument to make as a message, amy. you have to convince the country that there is woke people who assemble and gather and run woke -- i mean, that is not reality. joe biden spent the weekend talking to kevin mccarthy. what is this about? >> wokism isn't a thing. and to bring it into the light of somehow the military is too woke, it is really a shame that we have a presidential candidate doing this. it actually hurts our military. diversity and inclusion efforts have been going on for the past like 30 plus years. i'm a product, as somebody who has been a fighter pilot as a woman, i'm a product of these efforts. what these guys want to do is go

back to pre-1990 when women couldn't do some of these jobs in the military. it is crazy. and it actually hurts us because you know what, our military exists to fight and win the nation's wars and we should have the best people in those positions. and we got to be able to recruit from everybody, from all walks of life. and that is what these efforts that the pentagon is doing and have been doing for years, that is what they are doing. and to bash that is really just crazy on desantis' part. >> and it is not without real targets of their ire. they rail against chairman milley, against secretary austin, they smear and align them. and chairman milley's crime is that he testified that he would like to understand white rage. that is what they are mad at him about. i'm not everyone clear on what

the smear against secretary austin is about. but it does represent a new brazenness in terms of being willing and eager to smear military leaders. amy, why do you think that they are cheered on by the echo chamber on the right? >> well, i think that it plays to their base. they have to create -- they want to create chaos. but here is the thing. this is reason number 121 as to why the republican party is no longer the party of national security. when you have one senator holding up 200 nominations to high level posts that i know you will talk about, when you have a republican party that is okay with their members cheering on people who have released classified information to the public hurting our national security, when you have the right -- cheering on right wing folks who are like the air

national guardsman who released this classified information, you are not the party of national security anymore. and this again is another example of that. and i think that it will hurt them in the long run. >> i mean, jeremy, by design none of you are politicians, but jeremy, it takes democrats being willing to make this argument that the republican party under at least desantis and trump are running as anti-military candidates. >> i certainly think that they are running as anti-u.s. leadership in the world candidates. case in point is exactly their position on ukraine. exactly their position on nato. so ron desantis called ukraine a territorial dispute and then he had to of course clean up aisle 8 when even pointed out this was an autocratic government in putin, in russia, that was running roughshod over a democracy on the doorstep of nato. and that this was no mere territorial dispute.

this was a geopolitical threat to the west and to the united states and the united states and our allies had to rush with defense, with training, with cooperation, with sanctions, with cyber defenses, with an array of military capabilities to ensure that democracies can't just be erased by the whim of an autokrat. so if any don't understand that, they don't understand our global security environment. >> is it that they don't understand it or they understand it perfectly well and they want to move toward autocratic playbooks? >> i think you and others will pose to these people as they make their case to the american people. i don't think that i can sit here and say i know what is in their mind. but i do know the outcome of it. the outcome is that donald trump threatened to withdraw from nato on multiple occasions.

and just imagine where we would be in 2022 and 2023 if he had done that, if the united states had left nato. and if he is elected president again, i think that we can expect that and i think that the world does expect that. and i think that that scenario will be watched very carefully not just in europe but in the indo-pacific in and around by taiwan and by the chinese. if we don't defend ukraine, they will assume that we'll never be able to defend taiwan or indo-pacific andchina will have a field day. so way to guarantee that is undermine support for nato. >> how much of this resonates in the military? trump and desantis are anti-democratic candidates. simple clear declaration. they seek to be leaders of autocratic movements. trump would have refused to affirm, he wanted to leave nato

his entire presidency. he was held back from doing so. he is not dumb enough to have any of those people in his second presidency. how do you make that matter to the military? >> i think they think it matters on a personal level. when they hear a guy running for president and he says the military is too woke, the military is broken, there are men and women on a battleship seeing that clip saying it didn't look broke to me, we're all working together and trying to defend american shores and protect against our enemies. and i think that they are underestimating how personal that feels for many people who are not just in the military but the 20 million people who are veterans. and our enemies are celebrating. every time an american political candidate and former president of the united states are attacking our military out in the open, putin loves it. kim jung-un loves it. north korea loves it.

china loves it. they want this to continue. this is like a far extended manifestation of osama bin laden's dream. he would love to see america attacking its own military out in the open and every time that we do, we're weakening our national security. that hurts morale and our enemies are celebrating and our allies are worried. people in ukraine every day are concerned that we'll pull the plug and they are deep in the fight. men and women and maybe one of the most diverse progressive militaries on the planet is showing why we need to have a military that continues to evolve. >> ukrainians are actively trying to figure out how much time they have to win. okay. no one is going anywhere. everyone is here the whole hour. when we come back, we'll turn to the story amy talked about, the damage to national security because of one republican senator named tommy tuberville. that is next. that's my boy. ♪ stay off the freeways!

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narrator: california's community schools: reimagining public education. when a truck hit my car,a's community schools: reimagining public education. the insurance company wasn't fair. i didid't t kn whahatmy c caswa, so i called the barnes firm. i'm rich barnes. it's hard for people to k how much their accident case is worth.h barnes. t ouour juryry aorneneys hehelpou republican tommy tuberville's stunt of holding up military promotions until the biden administration agrees to end its policy of allowing women serving in the military and families of active service members to access basic reproductive health care continues to imperil military readiness. tuberville for the seventh time in four months put a hold on a list of more than 200 military promotions awaiting senate confirmation. that backlog now includes president biden's new nominee for chairman of the joint chiefs

of staff. amy. >> yeah. where do start. first of all, this thing just drives me crazy because first of all take out the national security implications of the 200 positions that he is holding up. just think about what senator tuberville wants to happen. in the military when you are deployed to say a third world country or in combat and if you are a woman in the military and you are sexually assaulted, the military will fly you -- take you to a base, whether back in the united states or somewhere else, where you can get the reproductive health care that you deserve if you are sexually assaulted. right now in the united states of america, we have states like alabama, mississippi, my state of kentucky for example, texas, where if this happens to a woman in the military on base in that area, the military will then

transport you temporarily to a place where you can get reproductive health care in a state where it is legal. that is what the military policy is. this is not radical. and what senator tuberville is doing is trying to impose his right wing ideological views on the military just trying to take care of its people. it is absolutely incredible. and again, it is why the republican party is not the party of national security anymore. they just don't do anything about it. >> and it is so radical, the rest of the republicans are not with him. but all the same, he has the ability to hold up these confirmations. >> and i think the national security implications are very important to note. you've got positions lining the commander of the fifth fleet, commander of the seventh fleet, deputy commander of cyber command, they won't be able to take their positions because of this hold on every single one of

the general and flag officer nominations pending before the senate. used to be pro forma thing. but no longer. and so earlier this may, seven former secretaries of defense who served under both democratic and republican presidents, including people like sent mark esper, including people like jim mattis, bob gates, leon panetta, bill cohen, bill perry, chuck haguele, down the line, they all wrote a letter to the senate leadership and said this hold on 200 general and flag officers is undermining national security and com bad readiness on a bipartisan basis, every former secretary of defense. and i think it is really telling that the republicans and other senators on capitol hill won't take this on. they won't move the military nominations forward. and it is undermining morale,

undermining readiness. if a family can't move to another assignment, they can't choose schools for their kids in the fall, spouses can't get jobs. they can't figure out where they are going next. and this is really damaging to america's national security. >> you get the last word. >> he is radical, heis ridiculous, he is reckless, he is way out on a limb and he is happy to be there. he has become senator red neck. who is the person that will pick the ridiculous position that would piss off the world, undermine the military, the same guy who made controversial comments about accepting white nationalists in the military. tuberville will be the guy, maybe he is jockeying for trump and desantis' vice presidential nomination, but he is not helping our military. and this is a real deal. this is mucking up the works for the pentagon across the world. and it is very serious. this is not a game. but his personal political crusade has now undermined national security. and republicans need to speak up. this used to be the party of

colin powell and john macand it is mccain and republicans need to speak up to get them in check and stand with our military. >> and we have it sneak in a quick break. when we come back, we'll turn to what looks from here like a serious escalation in the war between russia and ukraine. we've stripped all over this mountain. i love it when he strips for me. i strip on sick days. breathe right instantly relieves nighttime nasal congestion. daytime, too. helping you breathe easier for up to 12 hours.

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residential areas of moscow causing damage to buildings and forcing residents to evacuate their homes. ukrainian officials have denied any responsibility for the attacks which the russian defense ministry labeled as a, quote, terrorist attack. this is after days of russian shelling of kyiv including a rare daytime attack which led children running through the streets. at least one person died during three days of strikes. jeremy, tell me what you think is going on here. >> i think russia has been stepping up its attacks against kyiv and although we follow very carefully the ground war in bakhmut, i think the real story is the air war, the ability of both sides to field missiles and unmanned systems. and so if ukraine was doing this and by all accounts they were, i kind of don't blame them, i

actually think that there is something probably strategically important of them trying to attack inside russia. i think the official line of most in the west is that we don't want to escalate things, but if you are ukraine and under attack, i think that you will try to gain any upper hand you can to push moscow back and showcase that you also have the ability to hurt and harm them. and i think that is very important for ukraine to continue to demonstrate. >> amy. >> in modern warfare, this shows you that there is no place that is immune from attacks there drones. and also if you are the ukrainians, tactics sort of 101, and i

coming at you from the air which our patr wouldn't you wantio to get thei weapon systems on the ground before they can fire?re you need offensive weapons to be able to w do that. like wise, when you attack, if this is a ukrainian attack into the russian capital, you're going afterru the hearts and mis of the russian people, too. it's a psychology thing, and that'ssy important in warfare, too.wa so you can't blame them, and this is -- you know, this is as much defensive as sit offense. >> this is the fight a of our time. this is the closest thing to world war ii we've seen in our lives. why do we think this ukrainians have to have a different standard than we have? if our cities were being bombed, kids being killed we'd punch back, too. why do we hold the ukrainians tr a different standard? we need them to persecute this t

war, give them all weapons this need, not play mother may i, and understand war's going to be messy. >> such a treat to have all three of you. thank you for spending the better part of the hour with us. thank you. quick break for us. we'll be right back. break for us we'll be right back. but now that i got the inspire implant, it's making me think of doing other things i've been putting off. like removing that tattoo of your first wife's name. inspire. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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liar in chief to quote the texas tribune. the charges against him include bribery and abuse of the public trust. the two-thirds vote is needed for his removal. in the state senate that's made up of 19 republicans and 12 democrats, and without even a hint of irony, donald trump and his support for paxton called the scandal, wait for it, election interference. go figure. we'll keep up with this one for you. in the meantime, another break for us, we'll be right back. 'll. and now she's got myplan. the game changing new plan that lets her pick exactly what she wants, and save on every perk. sadie's getting her plan ready for a big trip. travel pass, on. nice iphone 14 pro! cute couple. trips don't last forever. neither does summer love. so, sadie's moving on. apple music? check. introducing myplan. the first and only unlimited plan to give you exactly what you want, so you only pay for what you need. and get iphone 14 pro on us when you switch. it's your verizon. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools make complex trading less complicated.

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leader in the house hakeem jeffries will be chris hayes' guest on "all in". you can watch that conversation later tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. thanks to all of you for letting substance abuse your homes during these truly extraordinary times. "the beat" with katie phang in for ari melber starts right now. >> welcome to "the beat." i am katie phang for ari melber. we start with damning details in the trump documents probe. waved off from searching trump's office for records, which is later where the fbi found the most sensitive materials. noting several trump aides told this lawyer, evan corcoran to search the storage room. corcoran asked whether he should search anywhere else but was steered away. i want toot