can make the decisions and they. well everyone has understand that california and mississippi are going to have different laws on abortion. that's up to the voters to decide whether they want those legislators and governors to make that decision. that is the new reality. anything that the republicans are talking about in terms of national portion that's not that, it becomes a very scary message that can't be explained and you drive independent and young voters away. that is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. we should bring it back konstantin. we gotta make them feel empowered, and excited about something. not confuse him with national bush and bad messaging. it isn't what carries a day. we need to talk about inflation, energy dependence, health care reform, border security, these are the things that really matter the are the things that y matter on a national level and can be fixed, if we're talking about abortion we're getting distracted and probably losing voters in the process. >> new hampshire governor chris sununu, thanks for joining me.

that is all in. and i'll be back sunday at noon eastern for my show with jen psaki. the rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, jen. they've already got you working triple time in. >> something like that. >> well, this is it down side of being very good of what you're doing then you have to do more and more of it. >> thank you. i had a pretty good time. an hour went quickly. some interesting things. >> i felt the same. that's a very good sign. thank you, my friend. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. it's good to be here. so he spent 21 years spying against the united states, he did it for money and who knows what else, but they did pay him. they paid him in cash. they also paid him in diamonds, which is a nice spy movie touch. but he spied against the u.s. for 21 years, and for the next

21 years after that he resided in federal prison. so 21 years as a spy against america and then 21 years and counting in prison because of it before he died today in prison at the age of 79. it was stop the presses huge national news when they first caught him in 2001. >> from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this is nbc "nightly news" with tom brokau. >> good evening. tonight the fbi has under lock and key one of its own. >> fbi agents today searched the suburban washington home of their own. robert phillip hansen, a 25-year veteran of the fbi accused of doing, quote, extreme damage to the u.s. passing on super sensitive

classified information to his soviet and then russian handlers in washington. >> 24 criminal conduct alleged represents the most traitorous actions imaginable. >> the most traitorous actions imaginable. his name was robert hansson. he first joined the fbi in 1976. he moved up fast from the new york field office where he was first hired to fbi headquarters in washington, d.c. and the part of the fbi that he worked in, his sort of area of specialty was the part of the fbi that kept tabs on russia. that kept tabs on russia specifically running spies inside this country. he worked at that part of the fbi that kept track of spying operations that the soviet union was running here in the u.s. targeting us. he worked an fbi counterintelligence.

the part of the fbi that watched for russian spies and tried to stop them here in america. and among other things, that meant that he knew a lot about russian spying operations in the united states. more than almost anybody else in the country. and that meant in very practical terms when he decided that he himself wanted to become a russian spy in the united states, he knew exactly who to go to and exactly how to do it. he was only at the fbi about three years before he decided to become a traitor. he joined the fbi in 1976. by 1979, they think he was on the russian pay roll, stealing u.s. secrets and giving them to moscow. among the stuff he gave them were the names of russians who were secretly working for the united states inside russia. after he gave his russian handlers those names of russians who were secretly working for the u.s., those people were rounded up by the soviet authorities and executed. he also told his russian

handlers about the fact that the fbi and the nsa had built a seek tunnel under the soviet embassy in washington, d.c. basically, as a way of bugging the embassy so the u.s. could spy on them. robert hanssen told the soviets about that tunnel under their embassy, which of course, blew up that whole operation. in 2007, after he was in prison, this movie was made about the case. a movie called breach starring chris cooper as the spy. robert hanssen starring ryan philippe as this young go-getter fbi agent to whom hansen was a huge jerk and gets assigned to this nerves of steel. it's a good movie. it's got a very high creep factor. you can tell from the coloration here. it has kind of a creepy hitchcockian vibe throughout

which seems totally appropriate given the facts of the real world case. but even that movie breach from 2007, even that good movie is nothing compared to the real-live footage. this is real footage. look here. of the real robert hanssen being arrested. when that nerves of steel operation inside the fbi to catch him in the act actually did catch him in the act. this is the actual moment when he was taken into custody. he was at a park in fairfax, virginia. a place called fox stone park. he had just left a dead drop for his russian handler. the fbi had been watching him and they swooped in and arrested him. that was 2001. again, it was national news. a huge deal all over the country. hanssen pled guilty to 15 counts of espionage. he pled guilty to avoid the death penalty. he was arrested in 2001,

sentenced in 2002 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. and that is where he was, in prison without the possibility of parole when he died today at the age of 79. given the type of high-level secret information that hansen gave first to the soviets and then to the russians, given the body count attributed to him, robert hanssen's story is considered one of the most damaging u.s. intelligence disasters we have ever had as a country and we've had a few. it is also just one of the darkest stories that we have when it comes to intrigue about russia, and there are quite a few of those stories. even just in today's news alone. today in russia, somebody figured out how to get a fake speech by vladimir putin broadcast on russian tv and radio. this is early this afternoon in russia time. it appears somebody hacked into

at least one russian tv network and radio network. they broadcast a fake speech by vladimir putin in which putin appeared to be announcing that russia had been invaded by ukraine. that all russian civilians should evacuate from three russian province that's border ukraine. he said in this fake address that he was instituting martial law throughout russia and russia was going into full military mobilization, which would be a full draft of everybody eligible to be fighting, to go fight the war. none of that was real. but somebody had the wherewithal to piece together a pretty good looking fake broadcast, to make it look and sound like that's what putin was telling the russian people today. and it ran this afternoon on russian television and radio. it's like a war of the worlds thing, right? but at a time and place where there actually is a war on. this fake today, it was pretty good.

it wasn't particularly good, but it could have been. i mean this is now the era of widely available artificial intelligence technology and very cheap, very accessible technology for making so-called deep fakes. this thing could very easily get very, very good very quickly but we already know there is an appetite for it in this war. i mean, this happened today. this fake putin broadcast happened today in russia on a day when the ukrainian military did start making what they're calling a significant territorial gains. significant enough that some analysts in the united states are wondering if maybe today was the kick-off of the ukrainian military's big counter punch in that war. their big plan for a counteroffensive to take back the territory that russia has seized from them in this war. it's interesting. there's enough uncertainty about that that we've got these great competing headlines tonight

running on the front page of "the new york times" and "the washington post." can you put them up there? there it is as ukrainian attacks surge, u.s. officials see signs of counteroffensive. at the same time in the "washington post," here's their contrary headline. ukrainian forces advance on russians, deny counteroffensive has begun. so we don't know whether the big, much anticipated ukrainian counter punch has happened, whether or not the counter offensive has begun, and whether or not it would make sense to formally announce it if it has begun. either way, if you think about it, this would not be a crazy time to pair a major military effort with a weird big technological psy-op to make the russian people question whether that's the real vladimir putin

when they see somebody that looks like him on tv. so maybe the ukrainian counteroffensive has started. maybe it hasn't. this fake putin broadcast today is a very weird intervention into sort of psychological morass on which it's happening only both sides of the border. and there's more strange going on. the russians have this private for profit mercenary army, the wagner group fighting alongside the russian army. we're getting reports russian forces have started shooting at the wagner group, and in response the wagner group has just arrested and kidnapped a russian general. i don't know what ukraine really thinks of their odds overall in mounting their so-called counteroffensive militarily, but honestly, it can't be a bad thing for ukraine if the two entities that invaded them and

have been fighting them have started shooting at each other and kidnapping each other's generals instead of fighting ukraine. i'm sure from a ukrainian perspective, that seems fine. it's all happening. i've got a new podcast that is about to come out. it is called rachel maddow presents deja news. the first episode comes out next week. the trailer came out today. it is out now. you can follow the show for 47 so you go get the new episodes when they come out. you can do that at msnbc/deja news. again it's just the trailer out now. episode number one comes out next week. but the basic idea of this new podcast is that deja vu all over again. the basic idea is that we keep having things happening in the news that seem totally unprecedented. that seem bizarre and new and out of the blue. but in fact, there is precedent,

there is something like this that has happened before and maybe learning about that his, to precedent can help us understand what otherwise feels overwhelming or super unfamiliar in today's news. that's the basic idea of the news podcast which is just launching today. with all the russia intrigue in today's news, right? with robert hanssen dying, this massively damaging russian spy, with the fake putin speech being mysteriously broadcast on russian tv and radio, with the dog eat dog between real russian soldiers and paid russian mercenaries who are supposed to be on the same side in the war. with all that crazy news today, the deja news moment that i've been having today is one from 2018 from the trump administration. do you remember the do not

congratulate saga? do you remember this? this was five years ago. 2018. the "washington post" broke this bizarre story about then president trump getting briefed by his national security advisers. he was about to get on a phone call with vladimir putin, the president of russia. by then it was pretty well established that trump didn't like getting too much in print in terms of briefing materials. so the "washington post" reported on march 20, 2018, that the trump advisers made sure they put one thing in his briefing papers in all capital letters. basically, the idea being, okay, we know you don't like to read. if you only take one one thing. if you only remember one thing when you get on the call. just remember this. we'll put on it all capital letters on a piece of paper on your desk in front of you while you're talking to him. and what we'll tell you to do. you can't forget this. do not congratulate. that was in all capital letters

right in front of him while they put him on the phone with putin. the reason they did that is because russia had just had some elections ostensibly, not real elections. it was therefore important that the president of the united states should not endorse the purported outcome of these elections as if they were real. so there is this three-word note in his briefing materials. whatever else you say to this guy, do not congratulate. and then what happened? trump, of course, got on the phone with putin and immediately said, i want to congratulate you, sir on your great election victory. the one thing he was supposed to not say. do not congratulate. it's the first thing he said to the guy. that was 2018. deja news. because this was this weekend. congratulations kim jong-un. or as he spelled it, kim jung un.

i mean lots of foreign leaders names are hard to spell. kim jong-un is not one of those names. it's pretty much phonetic. it's kim jong-un. how hard is that? but still, he misspelled it. more to the point though, in general, american politicians in no circumstances should be congratulating the dictator of north korea on anything. barring kim jong-un like stepping down and apologizing, that might be the only thing you would congratulate him for. otherwise, do not congratulate. standing order when it comes to the dictator of north korea. but there is trump. warmly congratulating kim jong-un and misspelling it in the meantime. and you know, in a normal political world somewhere between you deciding to congratulate the north korean dictator and you misspelling

that congratulations, somewhere between there, the idea of you as presidential material would like shred itself and blow with a on the median of a ten-lane highway. but instead over old he's still the front runner of the republican party's nominating contest for 2024. do not congratulate. and all the other candidates in that race, and there are many of them now, they're all struggling with what to do even with something that bad. with something that obviously wrong. even with this guy issuing warm congratulations to the north korean dictator. florida governor ron desantis, for example, he was asked about this and he managed to say that he was, quote, surprised to see that congratulations from former president trump for the dictator of north korea. he said he was surprised. surprised, really?

i mean, trump expressing warm misspelled congratulations to the north korean dictator is a lot of things, but is it surprising, really? you really didn't see that coming? you didn't see that exact thing from him before? the other way this is turning into a deja news sort of thing is the overall size on the republican field. there is a reason this feels family. in 2016 the presidential field was the biggest republican field ever. but of course it all just dissolved into an aforemous contest between trump and all the other candidates that were not trump. he started off as a joke at the outset. very quickly became the front

runner and then he instantly dispatched all the 16 other candidates who tried to run. tried to run as not him instead of just running against him. they tried to run as the alternate to trump instead of against trump. that's what happened in 2016. that's how he got the nomination in 2016. today we maybe on pace to have just as big a field. mike pence is now getting in the race as of today. before that we got ron desantis. before that, nikki haley and tim scott and asa hutchinson and others that i can't think of off the top of my head. chris christie and the governor of north dakota whose name is doug. there will be a lot of them in the field again apparently. and it's not clear yet if any of them have learned the lessons of 2016, if any of them are going to try to run against trump instead of just running as someone who's not him.

today, though, with news of the re-convening grand jury regarding criminal charges against trump with news that another grand jury is considering something related to trump in florida. something we didn't previously know. with trump's attorneys meeting with justice officials including meeting with the special counsel himself in washington. with trump's existing attorneys shopping around for more trump attorneys. they are apparently looking specifically for defense lawyers with federal trial experience in washington. today at least, all of this news makes it appear that part of the preparation for republican presidential politics will be everybody preparing for a potential for the front runner over and above the state criminal charges he's already facing. if we end up with a double indicted front runner, that would be a new thing in our

politics. we've got the latest only, plus a big policy challenge for the biden administration to talk about. this is something the obama administration also faced. they were able to basically handle it, basically take a strong stand that made a difference. the biden administration is now trying to do that, too. it is proving to be very difficult for them. we've got an in-depth report coming up on that next. a lot to get to. stay with us. us e that a good da. is about to become a bad one. but then, i remembered that the world is so much bigger than that, with trelegy. because one dose a day helps keep my asthma symptoms under control. and with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy helps improve lung function so i can breathe easier for a full 24 hours. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. trelegy contains a medicine that increases risk of hospitalizations and death from asthma problems when used alone. when this medicine is used with an inhaled corticosteroid,

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do you personally dislike homosexuals? >> of course. what sort of group are they? >> that is the president of aganda in 2014 after he signed into law a really radical piece

of legislation. it was referred to as kill the gays bill because the original version of that called just for that, called for executing people for the grave crime of being gay. now, if you've been watching this show from the beginning you might remember we covered the fight over that law extensively at the time not just because it was so extreme but also there was a big american connection to it. some of the architects of that bill were americans, radical, anti-gay evangelical actors and preachers who went to uganda to sell what they couldn't get done here in this country to a different country where they thought they could get away with it. these groups carried on a multi-year campaign to get radical anti-gay legislation passed in uganda. and they succeeded. in 2014 the kill the gays law was signed into law in uganda. and what happened next was interesting. it was not just the expected legal challenges within that

country, we also saw a very strong stand from the obama white house at the time. this is from the obama administration's press release at the time, quote, we want human rights abusers worldwide to know their deeds are not unnoticed and would be abusers to understand that there are consequences for engaging in such actions. the state department is taking steps to restrict the entry into the united states of specific ugandan individuals involved in serious violations or abuses of human rights including those determine today have committed such violations or abuses against lgbt individuals. that was in 2014. the obama administration pushed the country in specific ways. they canceled joint military exercises that the u.s. had planned with uganda. the obama administration pulled millions of dollars that had been planned to give to that country to support their country's policing. the u.s. had planned to open a national public health institute in uganda. instead the obama administration

withdrew the millions of dollars planned for that endeavor and moved it to another country instead. the obama white house used all these powers at its disposal. and it seems to have made a difference. those efforts were not the only reason that the antigay law fell apart in 2014 but it fell apart. the law was challenge in the court there in uganda by human rights activists, by journalists, it was struck down in courts on technical grounds. but the big shove from the united states by all accounts made a difference. now in 2023, it is back. it's worse in some ways. and this new legislation once again comes against the back drop of americans being involved in it. once again, a back drop of u.s. antigay evangelical groups pouring resources into advocating for this antigay agenda in uganda.

and the same uganda president who says he thinks gay people are disgusting, he's now signed into law an even harsher piece of legislation. it imposes, yes, the death penalty for what they call aggravated homosexuality. life in prison. it administration it illegal to even advocate for lgbtq people to have rights. even advocacy of gay rights carries a penalty of 20 years in prison. if you are lgbtq, you are living in uganda right now, it is an understatement to say the situation on the ground there is terrifying. lots of people are fleeing the country. other people have not left their homes since the legislation was signed into law for fear they will be targeted either by the government or by mob justice.

it's happening again. this time it's worse. here's a question for us. is there an american government response that could be helpful here in the way the u.s. response, the strong response was helpful in 2014? how much of a responsibility does the u.s. have in fixing things given the role of certain americans inculcating this stuff over there? but also, does the u.s. have a special opportunity as a country, not just a responsibility but an opportunity to help? given that we've done it before. so far the biden administration has talked about measures, considering measures that very much track exactly with what the obama white house did the last time around when this was in the headlines in 2013 and 2014. the question is whether it is enough. whether the u.s. could be doing something else or pushing even

more aggressively? the uganda government knew what to expect from us. they saw it ten years ago. they went ahead and did it this time in full anticipation of what we would do. can the u.s. response be amped up to account for that, particularly since we are part of the problem for how we got into this mess in the first place? where do we go from here? joining us now, adrian, the executive director of human rights awareness and promotion forum, which advocates for marginalized grouped in uganda. he helped coordinate the successful legal challenge to uganda's antigay bill in 2014. he's been pressed into service to file a petition to have this latest law thrown out. thank you very much for being here. it's good to meet you. >> thank you so much, rachel. >> first, let me ask if anything i said seemed wrong to you or if i got any of that the wrong way around. >> no, everything is great and accurate. >> in terms of the u.s. responsibility for things being

so bad. i don't want to overstate that. this is internal dynamics in your country largely driving. this as an american watching this process, knowing that americans have been in uganda advocating for this, it is upsetting. it is disheartening to know we've made it worse. have americans been bringing this around again? >> yes. i think it is around the americans coming into uganda spreading the hate. if we don't stop it now look what's happening in africa and what's happening in uganda. >> the u.s. has been pretty successful in advocating for this in uganda. you think the same antigay american evangelical groups want this in as many african countries as they can get it. we said they had a meeting with the president of uganda and many others across the continent. and this is the agenda that spreads across africa. >> in terms of the situation on

the ground right now in uganda, we've seen a lot of reporting. we spoke on the show about people anticipating the law passing and now that it did, being afraid. not just of the law's enforcement but afraid that the law effectively gives random ugandan citizens to be vigilanties. do you see that it way? >> that's what they are doing. one of them, if you ask me myself, that's what it means. we're not sure what this means. so for an average ugandan, the question is what will happen to me next? if i picked up and arrested, am i going to be beaten? will i be beaten by my neighbors? right now, seven cases of

eviction since the law was signed in last week. >> it was already signed last week and you already have seven cases of people being thrown out of their houses by their landlord. >> that's correct. >> because of the law. when this happened in 2013, 2014, the obama administration publicly pushed back against it and it appears from the observers that that did help. tell biden administration has said a lot of the same things. are you happy with the biden administration so far? >> we only did what they say. i want them to live up to what they promised. that's very important. if they do, then everyone else is watching. and so kenya and ghana and other countries are going to take note like oh, nothing happened in uganda. nothing was done. so for me, if they say they should do it, they should do it. that's important.

>> when the biden administration says there may be sanctions on ugandan officials, you want to make sure if they effectively threaten that, that in fact sanctions do follow. >> that's what i would say, yes. >> executive director of the human rights awareness and promotion forum, as you explained it is a personal risk for you to be here talking ability these things given the way this law is setup. it makes me all the more grateful you're here. thank you. stay in touch with us. >> thank you. >> the executive director of human rights awareness and promotion forum in uganda. we've got much more ahead. stay with us. stay with us trapping you in an endless craving loop. nicorette reduces cravings until they're gone for good.

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did you have a meeting with the attorney general? >> i don't have any comment. >> did they say why they wouldn't meet with you? did you meet with lisa monaco? >> we don't have any comment. we don't have any comment. please part so we can go to our waiting taxi cab. that was all we got from lawyers of donald trump as they left a meeting of some sort at the u.s. department of justice in washington, d.c. you might remember two weeks ago, the trump legal team publicly asked for a meeting with attorney general merrick garland. lawyers for the former president said he was being treated unfairly by the special counsel who is looking into trump's handling of presidential records including classified documents.

the fbi reported finding those documents in a search of mar-a-lago last year. while the trump lawyers today did not get the meeting they wanted with the attorney general or with the deputy attorney general, lisa monaco, they did meet with a group of justice department officials that included at least one career prosecutor and that also included the special counsel himself, jack smith. moments after that meeting let out, the former president himself posted a shouty barely literal misspelled message in all cams on social media that said in part, how could the justice department possibly charge me? who did nothing wrong when no other presidents misspelled were charged. he used to channel more of his charges into exclamation marks. now it all goes into capital letters. pretty soon it will be emojis. volcano, bunny, hammer.

the federal grand jury in d.c. is expected to come back this week from a sort of break that they've been on. they're supposed to start again in the mar-a-lago documents case. we don't know what that means in terms of the overall trajectory of the case. there's lots of speculation but we won't know what is happening with the grand jury until the grand jury speaks. another federal grand jury is meeting in florida on something related to trump. we don't know what. "the new york times" reports that federal prosecutors there are expected to question a new witness before the florida grand jury there this week west don't know what is going on before the grand jury until it speaks which is almost always with an indictment if they are going to speak at all. right on time, bloomberg reports that trump is looking to add new lawyers to his already large legal team, specifically looking for lawyers with federal trial experience which if nothing else means they are planning ahead for a federal trial. it is not your typical start to a republican primary but as they say, you go to war with the politicians you have.

not with the politicians you might wish to have. joining us now, a former national security official at the department of justice, former prosecutor on robert mueller's team. thank you for joining us tonight. i'm really looking forward to speaking with you about this. >> it's my pleasure. >> so the grand jury only lets us know what they're doing when an indictment is filed on the basis of the evidence they have collected. it is a secretive process. that is not stopping everybody and their sister from speculating as to what the publicly visible actions around grand jury rooms and court rooms and justice department headquarters might mean. do you feel like the tea leaf reading going on around these actions is accurate given what bunk the federal investigative process? >> i think the tea leaves are accurate that we'll see a charging document very soon. that is indicative of the fact

that the former president's attorneys requested a meeting with the department of justice to try to convince them to not bring charges and the former president's attorneys have more tea leaves. more signals than we do. so i think it is further evidence of the fact that it will be coming down soon. >> i feel like a lot was made over the fact go that president trump's attorneys asked to meet with the attorney general. they did not meet with the attorney general. on the one hand, that means they didn't get the direct thing they were requesting. on the other hand it seems correct given what they're complaining going is the special counsel's investigation, and by the very name of a special counsel appointment, that investigation is supposed to be separate from the regular everyday work of the department and the attorney generals

directly overseeing it. is that fair? >> that's right. i wouldn't read anything into the fact the attorney general didn't take that meeting. it is not uncommon at the end of an investigation fortunate department of justice to invite the district attorney for a district. that's all that happened here. the special counsel is the decision-maker and the decision hasn't been made yet. >> in terms of what the federal grand jury process is here, and at what state it is at, it seems like there's a few different slices of this to look at. one is the federal grand jury that is meeting in washington, looking at the handling of classified documents. the stuff seized at mar-a-lago. based on the remit that special counsel jack smith was assigned, we believe there was a federal investigation at some stage looking at matters about the president, former president trying to overturn the election results and how that might have contributed to january 6th. now we're hearing there's a federal grand jury at work in

florida. it would seem that that is related to the classified documents part of this investigation. but again, it feels very opaque. it feels hard to parse from the outside. what do you make of what is publicly known about what, excuse me, what grand juries are meeting where and what they're looking at? >> a couple things. we need to be careful about overinterpreting what piece of information that we get. i think in terms of florida, it does seem just the fact that we're talking about florida very likely connected to mar-a-lago. and i think there are perhaps three possibilities. one is it is possible the mar-a-lago case could be charged in florida. there would be venue, the ability to bring the charges there. i would speculate it is more likely to write those charges in d.c. the second is that special counsel just simply wanted to obtain the testimony of an individual in florida and for

convenience purposes chose to get that testimony in florida. one grand jury testimony presented to another grand jury. and the third possibility is there are other charges. there may be other individuals and perhaps florida is the venue to charge those individuals. >> from a prosecutor's perspective, is there a disadvantage to having related indictments brought in multiple jurisdictions? if there was going to be a december indictment and a florida indictment. is there an advantage to bringing it in d.c. versus in florida? >> a few pieces. there certainly would be a preference to bring like-charges combined into one. it gets to one of your other points in terms of reading the tea leaves. time is of the essence. the department of justice. it is incumbent on them to try this case if there will be charges, probably before march. and whenever every week that goes by, it makes that increasingly challenging to bring one of these cases

involving the espionage act in seven to eight months. that's very challenging. so every week that goes by, i think it makes it increasingly difficult to meet that goal. >> very helpful perspective on that. thank you for making time to join us tonight. good to have you here. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. t back stay with us that can mean less oral steroids. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your asthma specialist about a nunormal with nucala.

perhaps you noticed the absence today of a gigantic self-inflicted financial disaster for the u.s. economy. today things did not self-annihilate in an irreversible economic fire ball of doom. it was a good day, and that is because over the weekend

president biden signed the bipartisan deal passed by congress to raise the u.s. debt ceiling. to keep the u.s. government paying its bills. thereby avoiding irreversible self-inflicted devastating economic catastrophe. today in the white house room where that deal was crafted, my beloved colleague, lawrence o'donnell interviewed the white house team who helped negotiate that deal for their boss, president biden. >> for this entire career, this is his super power. he really does know how to negotiate, what the considerations are that have to be balanced so you can secure votes on both sides, and you know, really establish a framework that we could negotiate within that made a difference so we could get this done. that is really where it begins and ends.

>> as you can tell, even from that clip, the biden administration clearly considers the debt ceiling deal a big victory for them. a victory for the country but also a big political victory for the president. in some ways, it is also a victory for the guy on the other side of the negotiating table from them. republican house speaker kevin mccarthy who does get to enjoy a little spate of good headlines about himself for the first time in his adult life. with this deal being signed and disaster averted, really the only people in politics who seem unable to declare victory are the republicans who opposed there being a deal. which i think it is fair to say it is a problem for the republicans. it is not awesome to be on record of being in favor of disaster when other people were working to make sure the disaster didn't happen. heading into this next year of

politics, it is a problem that nearly every single one of their declared candidates for president is on record as opposing the debt ceiling deal and instead siding with the far right republicans in congress who didn't want a deal. the side that lost when the american economy won. it is hard to spin your opposition to saving the american economy as a good thing. especially when it is like the whole field of candidates that you're putting forward for president. on the other hand, a win in politics counts only if you tell people about it. today a the contractic group that supports the biden agenda began running a new ad about president biden's role in brokering the deal. here it is. >> the economy was at risk of collapse, held hostage by maga republicans. when their threats of a catastrophic default if their demands weren't met. but president biden stood firm and negotiated a bipartisan

compromise that protects social security and medicare for seniors, expands benefits for veterans and their families, and preserves medicaid for those in need. thanks to president biden, the american people have an economy that works for them. >> i show that you as a political document. for my entire adult life, democrats have been very shy about self-promotion. they thought it is rude to remark publicly on things you've done and done well. there is nothing shy about that. tonight you can watch the full interview with the white house team about how the debt ceiling deal came together. that will be on "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. which is right after me. trust me, you'll want to stick around for that. stay with us. for that. stay with us sensodyne sensitivity gum & enamel relieves sensitivity, helps restore gum health, and rehardens enamel. i'm a big advocate of recommending things that i know work.

that's going to do it for me for now. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. there will be no reason to have the meeting if there weren't going to be potential charges. when you look at what the facts are, it would actually be a violation of the