vote how i felt, and i said i felt hopeful, which is kind of a strange way to feel after an impeachment vote. but the fact that my very conservative republican colleagues were able to put democracy ahead of their own political trial is something we should all celebrate, regardless of what party you belong to. >> well, his wife, angela paxson, who sits in the state senate, is going to have an even tougher job of putting things aside, which she is married to the individual who she is going to be sitting in judgment of. i don't know if she will recuse herself, but i have a sense i know which way that vote will go. there are a lot of senators who are going to have to make up their mind. texas saved representative, james talarico, thank you so much for your time tonight. >> thanks, chris. >> that is all in on this tuesday night. alex wagner now starts right now. good evening, alex. >> thanks, chris >> that is all in on this tuesday night. >> the spousal dynamics of what is happening, well so many

things of what happen in texas >> also some of the allegations there, it's going to be interesting in just a few weeks during that trial. >> indeed. thank you, my friend and thanks to you at home for joining us this evening. for the past several months we have watched the far right wing of the republican party hold the u.s. hostage far right republicans in congress demanded major concessions from the biden house or else it would blow up the pretty fragile u.s. economy, they would tank the stock market and push hundreds of thousands of people onto the unemployment so potential catastrophe of their own making. and now there's a deal on the table to stop that catastrophe from actually coming to pass. over the weekend president biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy hammered out an agreement to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default. and republicans, they got some of what they wanted in this deal. itd claws back unspent covid

relief funds. it creates new hurdles for some people who are trying to access food assistance and other federal programs, and it cuts funding from thean biden administration's plan to go after rich tax cheats and make them pay the taxes that they owe. but perhaps unsurprisingly none of that was enough for the far right wing in congress that demanded the standoff in the very first place. >> absolutely and completely unacceptable. trillions and trillions of dollars in debt. >> you're out there watching this,wa everyone of my colleagu be very clear, not one republican should vote for this deal. s it is a bad deal. >> i thought the last wasn't good enough. i had nogo idea, had no idea th we would see a plan as ephemerar and as malodious as this plan. >> this deal fails, fails

completely. and that's why these members and others will be absolutely opposed to the deal, and we will do everything in our power to stop it. >> those were members of the house freedom caucus today offering their assessment of thisof deal. conservatives have not been shy. they've found many ways to emphasize how much they do not approve of this plan. it is ephemeral. it is malodious. shortly after the details of the bill were released congressman dan bishop tweeted the vomit emoji. congressman chip roy called it a turd-sandwich. the criticisms were not subtle. for these conservative members people like scott perry, chip roy, andy biggs, none of them are likely to vote for this thing but apparently a lot of other republicans may not vote for it either. >> i think that it will pass

with about 80 to 100 democrat votes and between 140 and 160 republican votes.an i think the coalition opposed to this will be like the squad and the freedom caucus, and it will rocket through the senate after it passes the house, and i think that there's no serious threat to mccarthy's speakership. >> so that means tens, maybe over 100 democrats may have to pull this thing over the finish line. to be clear there is no big list of new democratic policies in this deal. what democrats get out of this agreement is a promise not to blow up the american economy on purpose, the preservation of almost all of president biden's legislative achievements over the past two years and an agreement republicans will not get a chance to do this all over again before the next election. okay, given everything that was at stake, that is not nothing, but this is certainly not a wish

list of democratic demands, which is why it is ironic it is likely to now be democrats who will have to pass this thing to avert an economic collapse. senator elizabeth warren summed up the democratic predicament in this fashion after an interview with reporters this afternoon. >> we shouldn't be in this position. the problem we've got is that the republicans are willing to take hostages and the democrats are not. we play the grownups in the room, and right now we are in a position wherewe the hostage takers have said they are perfectly willing to blow up the economy, to ruin our good name around theme world, to drive up our borrowing costs for decades into the future. and the democrats are trying to calm them down and give them enough to pass it by them. >> right now republican house members have been huddling for over an hour as the deal has just passed its first procedural

hurdle in the rules committee, and the question is what happens next. how many republicans buck their own leadership for a deal that they forced, and how many democrats fallor in line for a deal they never wanted? joining us now is brenden buck, former advisor to speakers ryan and boehner. also with us "the new york times" columnist michelle goldberg. the irony of this moment that someone like mattmo gaetz, and he's not majority whip last i checked, but sumging 80 to 100 democrats may beto enlisted, if you will, to get a republican confection across the finish line, do you think democrats will get what i see as the credit they are due for being the grownups in the room on all this? >> i think democrats have had a messaging conundrum if they either beat the drum too hard how biden kind of made a fairly decent deal in a fairly, you

know, kind of difficult situation then they make it less likely fory republicans to pas the thing, so it seems like they're holding their fire a little thbit. i think the white house and democrats inth general maybe missed an opportunity to message on this earlier in the process when polls were showing that, you know, a majority -- kind of the population was split on whose fault this is. and i think that maybe some republicans at least understand that if they pull out of this now, they tank this deal now, that it will be obvious to everybody who did that. but, no, i mean -- look, what elizabeth warren said is absolutely true, and there's basically no way to change that unless you replace, you know, a big chunk of the democratic party with crazed nilists which no one wants to do. >> by the anway, mentioning elizabeth warren after diagnosing the problem as something created by republicans, the fact she doesn't like what's in this, is still undecided on this vote.

>> the opposition thing is coming from the party that negotiated it, right? the opposition to it is coming from house republicans, and i guess the questionng now is fro how many house republicans. >> i would turn to you on that question. we have to first acknowledge the sort of absurdity that democrats can't even like ask for the credit they are due for fear of turn off the republicans who might vote for this, right? that is kid glove handling -- it is a deference to the insanity of the republican party, which i think is a fact of doing business in the current congress, but it still should be remarked upon, i think. how do you think -- i mean, do you think it is a forgone conclusion that mccarthy lieu as considerable number l of republicans on this and not just the sort of right flank of his

own conference? zbls yeah, i mean i think there's a pretty sizable chong that are going to vote no, but that's the reality of the house republican conference. anything thate is bipartisan i going to lose a lot of people. no one likes to vote with a democratic president. i'm glad you picked up on this. because i think the greatest trick kevin mccarthy as pulled off here is generating so much anger with progressives it makes it seem like republicans should be voting for this, when in reality this is pretty small deal, and there's been so much time and effort and frankly anger directed at this whole t process, and when you look at the substance of the matter republicans didn't get a whole lot. it's basically a a two-year budt agreement when you're going to have to do anyway. the work requirements, yeah, they're going to affectre a numr of people. but actually said more people are going to be on food stamps because of the work requirements. so this is actually not a big win for conservatives, but

that's the reality of anything a democrat touches. republicans are going to say no. mccarthy is going to lose a lot of votes, but looks like he's on the path to get a majority of his republican conference. >> i think we can talk about the contours of this deal in a second, but i think it is -- i would hazard to say that i think we should be careful about saying this is small deal because the catastrophe that was on the horizon, which by the way like june 5th is the deadline, threatening the full faith and credit of the united states, i mean there will be repercussions for the degree to which we edged to the very end of the runway, if you will, right? michelle, i mean there are people overseas and in this country that are not really actually worried about whether america can continue to just be fully functional as a democracy, and that is due in no small part to the gamesmanship that the republican party wanted to play ipcongress. >> right. i was worried, i was quite

worried. i feel a little bit more sanguine after the last couple ofne days and after the last committee vote,th but, yes, it seems we might be barrelering towards an entirely self-inflicted calamity. i think brendan is right it's a small deal relevant to the size of hostage the republican party took. >> sure. >> they were not able to extrace major concessions from the democrats, and he's right that's why the far-right and not just thefa far-right is angry about this, right? kevin mccarthy did not get that much out of this entirely self-createdel standoff. >> but, you know, i guess -- i'm of the mind and i agree it's 's complicated because there's the short-term analysis of this and then there's the longer-term analysis. yes, kevin mccarthy did not get -- there was not a republican wish list extracted from those negotiation over a very serious thing.

at the same time a precedent has been set once again. >> the democrats themselves were the concession. >> and the fact democrats are bailing out republicans from a catastrophic scenarioan of thei own creation, brendan, what is mn,ccarthy's. if this does paz with, you know, 80 to 100 democratic votes, 130 -- i'm not doing the math right, but if it is bipartisan what is the lesson for mccarthy in all of this? >> inwell, i think it's certain going to be bipartisan. and the reality is the honeymoon is over for kevin mccarthy. i think we can accept that. everything he's done up until thisdo point to be speaker is about thiso moment. this was the biggest thing he was going to do the entire two years as speaker. he'ss going to lose a lot of people. a lot of those people who voted for him on the floor than the 15th ballot to become speaker and said i trust you, you're never going to let me down feel

like he let them down. the other part was in 2011 when we had the first standoff with president obama. and each time the returns smaller and smaller. i don't know if mccarthy will be able to run this play again and get anything outla of it. when he did it in 2011 it was a much larger scale deal than they're doing now. i think mccarthy can breathe easy now that as speaker his place going forward. >> there are still calls for -- there are always call for his ousting. but there's potentially a discharge petition in the wingsi there are people who said you know what, you might have my one vote to call for your ouster. do you think that's a viable possibility in the coming weeks? >> i've seen one person say that that's on the table. i don't think it's relitzic, and a lot of people who you would looka to say, all right, time talk about getting rid of the speaker sayti they don't want t

do that. and i think it's testament to the fact how much goodwill mccarthy has built-up to this point. i think it's left people with pretty good feelings about goodwill about him. >> michelle, what if the biden strategy in all this, that he's counting on democrat tuesday geg this over the finish line. wesh know hakeem jeffries was jt on the 8:00 p.m. hour basically suggesting democrats will vote for this d in sizable numbers. i mean what do you think the lesson is for the white house after all, if this in fact does pass the house? >> s well, look, i think democrt in general, and there are certainly people rightfully angry about the work requirements which are needlessly punitive towards people but there might be recriminations about the fact he negotiated in the first place.

there's a sense i think biden is always being underestimated and he actually is a very good deal maker. he does very, very well in these bipartisan negotiations a lot of people on the outside think are feudal so i think it will restore some confidence in him at a time when people are panicked about having someone ov his age running for re-election. >> do you feel it was the right strategy to say at the outset of theset negotiations to say i'm notgo going to negotiate over t debt ceiling? >> it's so difficult because when you're dealing with people not just willing to take hostages but shooto hostages, u on the one hand, es, in principle that's the right thing and in principle might be able to try various work around and that's the 14th amendment, but good luck on getting the supreme court to back him up on that. he's the president of the united states and has the full faith and credit of the united states in his hands.

it h makes sense to me why he would be less willing to play chicken with that than, you know, some kind of guy who's in the house freedom caucus. >> emphasis on the word yahoos. thank you both for joining me tonight. really appreciate it. weal have a lot this evening li florida governor ron desantis hoping to wrestle some momentum away from donald trump before too many more republicans join the presidential race. and plus maybe president's entourage may be starting to turn on each other. more on that coming up next. ne.

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why did you leave the former president's legal team? >> so as i said at the time it had nothing to do with the case itself or the client. the real reason is because there are certain individuals that made defending the president much harder than it need today be. >> that was timpathy, one of donald trump's former lawyers. he used to rep trump in the mar-a-lago documents investigation, and since he left trump's legal team a few weeks ago we have known that there was trouble in paradise. but tonight new reporting shows just how serious that trouble actually is. the daily beast is reporting about a meeting last month at mar-a-lago where several of trump's lawyers threatened to leave. two sources describe the meeting to the daily beast as, quote, an intervention.

the outlet says the lawyers concerns here were two fold. number one, trump is under investigation for so many things that his legal team is massive, and these lawyers do not all get along. but more than not get along, these lawyers are also wondering if one of them could be a snitch. quote, what's driving the deepest distrust is the way special counsel's investigators have started turning up the heat on trump's own lawyers. by our account at least seven trump lawyers have testified to jack smith's grand jury or met with federal investigators, and it seems these attorneys are starting to get worried about going down with the ship here. after quitting timothy went on national television to say another trump lawyer, boris epstein, had attempted to interfere with his search for classified documents at trump's new jersey golf club, which is not exactly the picture of everyone rowing in the same direction. and today the guardian is out with new reporting about the

trump lawyer who's the liaison between trump and the doj. evan corcoran, that lawyer, was in charge of returning the classified documents to the department. now, corcoran reportedly told associates in june of last year he was waved off searching any room at mar-a-lago besides a single storage room. when mr. corcoran was looking for classified documents he say told to check that one room and not to check anywhere else. he was waved off from searching places like trump's office which is where of course months later the fbi would find the most highly classified documents. this reporting suggests again that not everyone is rowing in the same direction here, and it would also seem to buttress a potential obstruction case, a case if you read the reporting already seems pretty strong. so at this point it certainly seems like a lot of trump lawyers are effectively saying not it, and that makes sense. remember that last week "the

washington post" and "the new york times" reported that a trump employee turned witness has told special counsel smith that trump ordered workers to move boxes back into the storage room right before his lawyer, evan corcoran, searched the storage room. and all that happened one day before federal investigators came to collect the documents. so was that trump trying to mislead his own lawyers? were some of trump's lawyers also actively trying to mislead other trump lawyers? and with so many lawyers testifying in these investigations, will any of them flip to save their own hides? we might not have to wait that long to find out. bloomberg reported late last week that special counsel smith is poised to announce criminal charges in this investigation in the days or weeks after memorial day, which was yesterday. we have lots to discuss. joining me now is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama and of course co-host of the

sisters-in-law podcast. joyce, thanks for being here tonight. i don't have a law degree, but a lot of people do and a lot of them are working for donald trump and also have testified either to federal investigators or in front of the federal grand jury. i want to pull up this graphic we have. i think there are seven trump lawyers by our count who have testified to the grand jury the special counsel's convened or met with the doj investigators on this. that seems like a high number to me, joyce. and do you think those lawyers are emerging as potential liabilities for donald trump? >> it does seem like an exceptionally high number, alex. and to give a bit of context doj prosecutors are expect today be veriful when they're dealing with someone's lawyers

especially when that someone is a target. and i think it's safe to assume in this case people are being extremely rigorous about following those policies. for instance, you can't search a lawyers without jumping through any sort of loops. and what we've seen here repeatedly is a successful effort by prosecutors to pierce the attorney-client privilege with the crime fraud exception, which in essence means trump is either conspiring to engage in criminal activities with his lawyers or he is using them. the lawyer may not know what they're being used for, but trump is using their advice to perpetrate criminal conduct. that really adds up to a very unusual sort of situation here. in the same daily beast reporting there's a list effectively of all the lawyers working on all cases, and it is kind of a staggering number of attorneys. and first of all, the number of

probes and then the number of lawyers working on those separate probes, i mean give us a sense from your background on the flip side of this how unusual it is to be battling so many legal fronts with a different uncoordinated group -- not uncoordinated -- a group of lawyers that are not coordinating their movements necessarily with the other groups and how complicating that would be for a defendant? >> well, it's sort of tough for me to do that because i've never had a case against a former president who had four separate criminal investigations into his conduct, but i think the best sort of parallel that i can give you would be in a public corruption case or perhaps in a white collar fraud case where there are multiple allegations against a defendant or a group of people. and typically there's a fairly unified command structure among the lawyers. you know, here we know that evan corcoran has done a lot of the coordinating with doj, and yet

it doesn't always appear to be the case he has the sort of contact with the client that you would expect someone in that role to have. here's what you need to be able to do as the lawyer. if you're going to be certifying, for instance, that you've turned over all of the classified material or the presidential records material in your client's possession, then you need to be able to ascertain that from the client to a certainty. and you can't be restrictive in your movements and where you search. so this entire notion that perhaps -- i mean this is i guess the worst case reading but boxes were being moved in and out of storage areas before corcoran was permitted to search and that someone maybe the president, maybe someone else was going through those folders and perhaps removing material so it wouldn't be found, and it was only after that full level of shenanigans that material was turned over to doj. you know, that's not a position you would expect any lawyer in a functional team to be placed in.

>> and now the attorney general-client privilege has been pierced between corcoran and trump. but i've got to ask you on that count does it matter if trump was personally directing corcoran in all of this, whether he was waving him off, whether he was -- i mean how much does his direct involvement in all of this matter as you're building the obstruction case? for example, could walt nauta have been the person waving evan corcoran off, searching the office space and just saying just search that one room down in the storage area? does that matter? >> yeah, so i think it's unlikely that a lawyer like corcoran would be willing to take that guidance in walt nauta's position. this is a former military assistant, not the kind of person as a lawyer you're going to let define the scope of your search. but to the real point of your question if the doj has evidence that trump is directly involved

in manipulating the concealment of these documents, then doj's case which has already -- becomes much stronger. it may open up additional sorts of charges or accounts that prosecutors may wish to indict. that sort of direct evidence is what you're really hoping for here. it would be the smoking gun. >> can i ask you one more question on timing, joyce, which we're being told the potential charging decision would become nowish in the next couple of days and weeks. what would be the operations, what would we be looking for next as far as all of that? >> alex, i'm pretty sure we had this conversation over the meaning of the word imminent in connection with the georgia prosecution, and we agreed that prosecutors work on a sort of a funky time line, but the reality is because this case involves classified material and doj will

have to work out with the intelligence community and other people with equities precisely what information will be available as evidence at trial, that process can take a little while. and i would expect this very meticulous team of prosecutors to take their time in advance to dot their i's and cross their t's to make sure they know what evidence they will have available and what classified information the intelligence community feels strongly about holding onto, so i would say imminent would be more in terms of weeks or months and not days. but you know we're all just guessing here. >> and would they have to allow trump to come in the same way. a. bragg would? would a similar thing happen here? >> they can certainly offer him the opportunity to testify in front of the grand jury. his lawyers would be out of their minds if they were to let him do that testimony in front

of a grand jury that's under oath, so i think we won't see that happen here. >> all right, well we know what not to look out for. joyce vance, it's always a pleasure to talk with you. thanks for your wisdom this evening. >> thanks, alex. we have still more to come tonight including what donald trump reportedly wants to do if he wins back the white house. and here's a hint, it involves a witch hunt. but first florida governor ron desantis hits the campaign trail. first stop iowa, and he is about to get a lot of company. that's next. of company. that's next. (♪ music ♪) (♪ ♪) (♪ ♪) where could reinvention take your business?

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if you nominate me as your presidential candidate, set your clock to january 20, 2025, at high noon on the west side of the capitol because i'll have this left hand on the bible, and i will have that right hand in the air, and i will be sworn in as the 47th president of these united states. no excuses. is i will get the job done! >> that was florida governor and newly manipulated republican presidential candidate ron desantis kicking off his presidential campaign in iowa tonight where he hopes to be a credible alternative to donald trump. trump, if you recall, in the past two months has been indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments and

found liable by a jury for defamation. according to a new monmouth university poll almost half of republican and republican leaning voters think trump is definitely their strongest candidate to beat president biden in 2024, while another 18% think he is probably their strongest candidate. if you do the math there that is 63% of republican and republican leaning voters who think donald trump is either probably or definitely the strongest republican candidate for 2024. the monmouth poll was conducted just as governor desantis geared up to officially announce his candidacy, but it remains to be seen whether this official entry into this race will fend off other potential challengers because so far it hasn't. the ever expanding field already includes trump's first u.n. ambassador former south carolina

nikki haley, arkansas governor acea hutchinson, tim scott, and a handful of other lesser known personalities. the list goes on, though. "the new york times" reports today allies of former new governor new jersey chris christie have created a super-pack to support him in the primary and he's likely to kick off his campaign in the next two weeks. over the weekend new hampshire governor chris sununu says he'll decide whether or not he's throwing his hat into the ring in the next week or two. also in the next week or two according to "the wall street journal" north dakota governor is expected to announce his candidacy at an event a week from tomorrow. and then there's still former vice president mike pence who said back in april that he will make a decision well before late june, which i guess is now early or mid-june. a decision on whether or not to enter the presidential race. at this point the 2024

republican primary is starting to feel very reminiscent of the 2016 republican primary, which featured 17 major candidates who ended up splitting the vote and handing the nomination to donald trump. so there's that. now, trump has been extremely clear about what he's planning to do if he ends up back in the oval office again, and it is all about revenge. we're going to bring you the details on that coming up. brine details on that coming up.

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right now speaker kevin mccarthy is wrapping up a meeting with the house republican conference on that bipartisan debt limit deal he brokered at the white house. the deal is headed to the full house after a vote toofrm after it cleared its first procedural hurdle this evening, passing the rules committee for a vote 7-6. going into that conference meeting speaker mccarthy got a standing ovation and he told republican members, quote, there's nothing in there for democrats. i've never seen a bill that you can't point to one thing the other side got. joining us now is ryan nobles, nbc capitol hill correspondent. ryan, thanks for joining me. i know this is an ongoing situation. is there any sense democrats are going to balk for this in large number snz. >> i guess it would depend on your definition of large numbers, alex. i do think there will be a small bloc of democrats who end up

voting know hardly any if any democrats have come out and said no. i think that's loyalty to the white house and they're judging to see just how many republican votes kevin mccarthy can deliver and a lot of how much we see democratic support rise or fall will depend a lot on that. the house hakeem jeffries who's of course the leader of the minority told us he believes kevin mccarthy can deliver as many as 150 votes and that democrats will fill in that gap whatever it may be. so you're only talking about 70 or 80 democratic votes necessary to get this over the finish line. i think it's going to be a lot more than that. no doubt when you have a divided government you're going to come up with a compromised piece of legislation. and i do end up thinking that's how this is going to turn out. >> yeah, i guess i was asking that in part because mccarth seis basically saying there's

nothing in there for democrats and expecting large democrats will vote for something, a deal he put in motion. to that end mccarthy getting a standing ovation reportedly in this house republican conference, can you tell me his standing right now inside the party? is there any price he will pay for any of this? >> you know, alex, do think we don't talk about this enough, these voices critical of kevin mccarthy in the republican conference they are very loud, taifb the ability to command a microphone, they do a very good job of getting their message out particularly to the conservative base, but they are not large in numbers. the overwhelming majority of the republican party within the house of representatives is very supportive of kevin mccarthy. you know, it played out in a drut maic way during the speaker's contest because it took only a few of them to break away from the conference to deny him that speaker's gavel. in aggregate, most of the

republican numbers are supportive of kevin mccarthy. they do support him, and i do think that will play itself out with a great deal of specificity during this vote tomorrow. you're going to see most republicans vote yes on this piece of legislation. they do understand that a compromise was necessary to prevent the country from defaulting and the fact they even got joe biden to negotiate at all when his original stance was that there was no negotiation related to a debt ceiling indicates that mccarthy did make some in roads in these conversations. so mccarthy is not beloved by any stretch of the imagination, but he does have the support and able to cobble this group together and 20, 25, maybe 30 people complaining about thing said do not indicate the overall sense of his conference in any way, shape, or form. >> ryan nobles in the center of the action, thanks for the update, ryan. appreciate it. when we come back, we have new reporting about donald

trump's plans for revenge if he makes it back into the white house. we're going to talk to someone who has experienced the wrath of trump first-hand. that's next. first-hand that's next. , , you get to. you also get to trim this, edge that, and blow everything away. isn't the outdoors great? it is great. because you made it that way. get the job done right with craftsman. we build pride.

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. donald trump currently faces legal peril on multiple fronts and the strategy he often uses to tackle these issues is not a

secret. he makes his enemies the enemies of his followers. he attacks them in public, he tries to ruin their careers, and sometimes he even defames them. that is the trump play book and it has been for years. but now his legal troubles have piled up considerably, trump is making his fight against his enemies more explicit. in new reporting today rolling stone magazine details how trump is trying to go after the fbi and the justice department agents who are currently investigating him. quote, in recent months the former president has asked close advisers including one of his personal attorneys if we know all the names of senior fbi agents and justice department personnel who have worked on the federal probes into him. trump has then privately discussed that should he return to the white house it is imperative his new department of justice quickly and immediately purge the fbi and the doj's ranks of these officials and agents who have led the trump-related criminal investigations. during some of the conversations this year and including at

trump's florida club, mar-a-lago, some of trump's close political allies told him they are working on figuring out the identities of the fbi and doj staff and forming lists. so the time-tested trump play book is operational here in a big way, but some things at least are different this time around like this. the justice department is not making it easy for trump. according to rolling stone, the doj appears to be stone walling trump's allies who are asking for the names of those hired by the special counsel to investigate trump. the department is also obscuring the names of the department's lawyers according to e-mails with direct knowledge of the situation. joining us now someone who knows exactly what it's like to be a personal target of former president trump. he was remove num the investigation back in 2017 but fired from the fbi after more

than 20 years of service. peter, thanks for being my guest this evening. there's really no better person to speak with. does this reporting feel like vindication for you in your search to find out what happened here, get to the bottom of your firing? is it proof trump has a kill list? >> well, alex, i don't know if i'd call it vindication. it's certainly confirmation that what trump did in the end of his last administration, he's absolutely going to come back with full vengeance the next time around. i mean it's hard for me to overstate what an assault on the rule of law this is. it's essentially someone who's running for president saying if you dare investigate me, i'm going to fire you. and there's nobody out in america who should -- this is something out of a banana republic. there is no person above the law, but clearly this is something trump is saying trying to proactively identify people who are working on investigations related to him and saying years out from his presidency, i'm going to fire

these people as soon as i can if and when i regain power, so it's absolutely something we saw him doing. as you indicated looks like deputy comey, deppy director andrew mccabe, other folks fired very much saw this in action and trump has doubled down saying, yes, i've done it like he frequently does. he goes up to the line and when she sees no resistance at that line he pushes forward. so i'm deeply concerned what happens in a trump administration with all these folks working day and night with special counsel jack smith and others to try and hold trump to account for his potentially illegal acts. >> i think it's not just about a second trump term, too. it could just be merchandising ordrs for the current republicans running committees in congress. we know effectively doing trump's bidding are jim jordan who's chair of the house judiciary committee, trying to get alvin bragg up to the hill. we know the house oversight committee chair has decided to hold the fbi director -- trump's

fbi director christopher wray in contempt of congress. i mean there are very real consequences for trump targeting these folks in realtime, right now. and i would ask you to be an investigator in the fbi or doj, what is it like working under that pressure in that spotlight? >> well, that's absolutely right. i mean, look, when i was working with special counsel mueller, we were all very well aware of the statements coming out of trump's mouth, the statements coming out of congress. did that make anyone afraid to do their job? no. were investigators and attorneys aware of it? yes, and you're right not only is trump threatening these people and their jobs and livelihood, but if you look at what is going on right now the fact of the matter is threats, physical threats of violence that are coming into fbi agents including the names of individuals who took part in the search warrant down at mar-a-lago, attacks on fbi facilities including a field

office in the midwest, this september just a future threat of your job. this is a current threat of violence simply based on trump and those around him trying to identify people, trying to intimidate them and prevent them from doing their job. >> what does the department need to do to protect investigators and agents? i mean we know they're masking e-mail addresses. we know that they are refusing to share the names of those working on the special counsel's probe, and what else should they be doing to keep folks safe as they do their jobs? >> think about what you just said. there are people the department of justice, the fbi, the nation's preeminent law enforcement agency are apparently having to take steps to shield people from the wrath of the front-runner of the united states in 2024. i think there's a question in my mind what if this activity if bona fide crosses the line into obstruction or tamper with

investigators, intimidate investigators. so i think there's some question if this activity goes far enough whether or not trump is beginning to encroach in those things which might actually represent violations of law. i mean i think what needs to happen right now, the leadership of the fbi and doj need to make it very clear internally to the work force but externally to the public that no one in doj, no one in the fbi is going to be deterred from doing their jobs. >> it's an important message. peter struck, it's great to talk to you about this. thanks for making the time tonight. >> thanks, alex. >> that does it for our show. we'll see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. yes, i'm confident we'll pass it. i've talked to many about -- i'm not sure what in the bill people are concerned about.

it is the