questions, whether he can even get on the stage. the rnc has certain thresholds, including 40,000 individual donors. if he gets on stage with trump he can mix it up with him. he sounded at one point like alex baldwin doing his saturday night live trump imitation. it is a trump moved to go after the family even though it is justified in this case. it would be great to see him on stage with trump. >> tonight. that is "all in" on this tuesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> good evening, chris. you have to think is it 40,000 unique donors or probably 40,000 democrats that would give to see

chris christie on stage. somehow by hook or by crook. thanks, chris. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. we start tonight with significant breaking news. "the new york times" is confirming that mark meadows, donald trump's former chief of staff, has testified to a federal grand jury as part of special counsel jack smith's ongoing investigations into trump's mishanding of classified information and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. this is a major development, and we are going to talk about it in just a minute with representative jamie raskin who served on the january 6th committee, but we start with mar-a-lago. at this point you have probably seen a picture of trump's florida resort. now, mar-a-lago is massive. it sits on about 20 acres of land. it has more than 50 bedrooms, and has all the hallmarks of

luxury, all the fancy stuff, italian stone and spanish tile, and lots of marble and gold plated fixtures and expense was rugs and also has a golf course, a ballroom, a batik, and not one but two swimming pools. here they are. one is by the beach in front, and the other sits right in the middle of basically everything. now, i point these pools out to you not just because pool envy is a real thing especially in the summer months because these pools, one of these pools is now at the center of the special counsel's investigation into trump's handling of classified documents. and it is at the center of that for a very weird reason. cnn was the first to report that, quote, an employee at donald trump's mar-a-lago residence drained the resort's swimming pool last october and ended up flooding a room where computer servers containing surveillance video logs were

kept. so -- whether the flooding is in the i.t. room where, okay, the surveillance video logs are kept, whether that was intentional or a really unfortunate mistake we do not know, but we do know the department of justice investigators are very suspicious of the timing here because the flooding took place right around the same time prosecutors were issuing subpoenas trying to obtain security camera footage from mar-a-lago. so, again, hmm. the flooding is subpoena that was the callmination of a months long battle on the part of the doj to get its hands on this mar-a-lago security footage, and that subpoena was not the department's first one, not by a long shot. in june of last year government officials had been fighting with trump for months to retrieve the classified documents he had in his possession down at mar-a-lago.

so the doj issued its first subpoena for security camera footage on june 24th. as a result of that first subpoena, doj officials got some of that security footage, and it showed two trump aides including valet, mark nauta and a maintenance worker. it showed them moving them on june 2nd, that was one day before fbi agents were invited to mar-a-lago to collect documents. which is, wow, okay, the timing there. but there were gaps in that security camera footage, which given the circumstances, people moving boxes out of the storage room, that was curious. so the department issued another subpoena for the video footage from outside the storage room, and it issued that subpoena a few weeks later. and while the doj was waiting for this investigators found out the employee that had been helping move the boxes into the mar-a-lago storage room, they

found out he called the mar-a-lago i.t. worker asking how the security cameras worked and how long images remained stored in the system, just asking for a friend, just wondering. again, he's the same guy who drained the pool in october causing a flood in the room where computer servers containing surveillance video were kept. he keeps popping up when things go wrong. so after the pool flood jack smith's office issued a third subpoena asking the trump organization to preserve all additional footage, keep it away from any pools, please. and around that same time in october mr. nauta, the other guy involved in all of this, he reportedly changed lawyers and stopped cooperating with investigators. ee do not know about how the jack smith team learned about the evidence, but for months now

we've learned all provided their testimony. so the special counsel probably has a full picture of what has been going down at mar-a-lago all these months. and now that team, the special counsel's team is presumably evaluating whether all these incidents, the moving of the boxes, the refusal to return the documents, the gaps in the security footage, the pool drainage, whether these were random events or orchestrated effort by donald trump on the part of his employees to interfere with the investigation. the latest twist here is the surprise revelation last night a previously unknown grand jury in south florida has recently started hearing testimony in this case. "the new york times" reports the grand jury in florida is separate from the one sitting for months in washington. among those who have appeared among the washington jury over the past few months or people familiar with it are more than 20 members of trump's secret service detail. as for the florida grand jury

which began hearing evidence last month, only a handful of witnesses have testified to it or scheduled to appear before it, but at least one witness has already testified, and another is set to testify tomorrow. joining us now is former acting u.s. solicitor-general neil katyal and also an msnbc legal analyst. neil, thank you for being here to help me understand the theories of the case. well, i think a sense of the theories of the case, but first your thoughts on these two grand injuries and what that signals, how you read those indicators. >> yeah, so jack smith is presenting now what looks like before two grand juries, one in florida and one in washington, d.c. i can tell you the grand jurors in florida, the prosecutors there aren't there to enjoy the weather. they could have impanelled this grand jury for any number of reasons, and it certainly doesn't mean trump is going to

be charged in florida or anything like that. what they do think is there's evidence of criminal wrongdoing going on in florida as well as in washington, d.c. now, up until a few weeks ago it looked like this case was heading towards jack smith indicting in florida, but donald trump himself made d.c. seem a lot more likely when appeared on the town hall and said i made all these classification decisions in washington, d.c., and that was i'm sure music to jack smith's ears. you could have prosecutors going for trump in d.c. and others for walt nauta, the valet in florida. it wouldn't shock me at the end of the day this becomes a conspiracy set of charges and it all takes place in washington, d.c. >> yeah, when you outline the actions of flooding around the iept t. room around an unsuspecting maintenance working

the picture of who else might be implemented in this might be clear. and trump could be criminally indicted in florida. "the new york times" almost made a case for that given all the action that's convened around trump and the documents at mar-a-lago, but you sound fairly certain you think if jack smith pursues an indictment, it will be in washington, d.c. >> well, alex, it can occur in either place. the justice department will be on very strong footing. it seems washington, d.c. according to former president trump's own words is in decision making. mark meadows possibly testifying on this, like the flooded pool and so on, all of that may be helpful evidence, but i think it's important for our viewers to understand that's not the criminal case. the criminal case, it's helpful but it's just helpful. the criminal case has been strong for months. i mean bill barr of all people

months ago said this was the greatest threat to president trump in terms of criminal jeopardy, and that's because we've known so many things for so many months, that he had more than a hundred classified and other national security documents at his country club, that he had them even though his attorneys swore he hadn't had them. we knew how significant these documents were, nuclear secrets and the like. we knew that a federal judge had already said that a crime had been committed here, and it was such a serious crime they had to pierce the attorney-client privilege. we also knew our nation's second highest court signed off on that ruling, the d.c. circuit. and we also knew about the dress rehearsals you mentioned a moment ago, the boxes being moved here and there. there's so much more, alex. and i know we're talking about this indictment potentially coming this week, and that's because the evidence so far looks overwhelming of donald trump's guilt.

>> and i -- i hear what you're saying about the overwhelming evidence we have thus far. i would assume that things like pool drainage would further buttress an obstruction case if that's indeed what jack smith is pursuing, but if we could could we discuss mark meadows for a minute, because this fellow has been like the white rabbit in alice in wonderland. if he has testified in front of a federal grand jury presumably he would be testifying about things he'd be trying to shield using the claim of executive privilege, right? is that a fair assessment of what kind of goods he was giving up behind the scenes? >> all those claims went to the supreme court. they rejected it 8-1, so he now has to testify. whether he's going to say i forgot and so on, who knows.

if meadows truly has flipped i think everything falls apart for trump even more than it already has because there's nothing more in trump world than loyalty. we've already seen with some of president trump's past chiefs of staff, so the same thing may be going on here. look, it seems so suspicious like everything in trump world. they say no one would ever build an i.t. room near a pool pit. that just doesn't happen. to be fair to donald trump maybe he built the house the way he tried to build the government and country, i don't know. it furthers the narrative of

obstruction of justice by donald trump. it's one thing to steal the documents, it's another thing to lie about it and hinder an skregz. that's why i think jack smith essentially has no choice here but to indict donald trump. >> i appreciate you've been talking to architects, neal. we've been scouring the internet looking for pictures and dimensions of the mar-a-lago pools. one more question for you about jack smith who met with -- we saw the man in person today. i think he'd gone to innocently get a subway sandwich and was spotted by our nbc reporters. he's not said anything on this topic, unsurprisingly. but he was in the meeting with trump's lawyers yesterday who have claimed prosecutorial misconduct in the special counsel's probe and demanded a meeting with merrick garland. as far as we know merrick garland did not attend these meetings, but jack smith appears to be meeting or has met with trump's lawyers. how do you read that?

is that just a pro forma exercise at the end of an investigation? do you think trump's lawyers will continue to make this case with any success, that somehow defense lawyers for trump's team were strong armed by doj prosecutors, investigators in this probe? >> yeah, so two things. one, strong armed and abusive, i mean give me a break. their claim was that the attorney-client privilege was violated here. they made that argument to a veryermented trial court judge who blew it out of the water and then made it to our nation's second highest court, the d.c. circuit that trump didn't try to take it to the supreme court. so i think those claims fall on death ears. second, i think the meeting with jack is important because it does really telegraph at least team trump at the end of the road of this part of the investigation. not january 6th but the stolen documents about mar-a-lago. because it's kind of a last

ditch effort you make as a defense attorney. you go in as a defense attorney and say to the prosecutor here's why you shouldn't indict. and it's your last card to play. they played it and suspect it's not a very good hand, but they had. and that's why i think jack smith took the meeting. i think that's not going to dissuade anything from happening. >> neal katyal, always good to talk to you. legal advice i and where you should put your i.t. room in relation to your swimming pool. coming up we'll have even more on this breaking news that mark meadows has testified. we'll get reaction to that from congressman jamie raskin who served in the january 6th investigation and was the lead impeachment manager over former president trump's impeachment over the events of january 69th. stay with us. the events of jan. stay with us

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two weeks ago cnn reported on something that was bothering trump's legal team, the unusual

silence from former chief of staff mark meadows. one trump advisor told cnn no one really knows what meadows is doing. then last week it was "the new york times" picking up on a similar threat. meadows' silence has caused suspicion and frustration in trump's orbit particularly after the revelation that the special counsel has a 2021 recording where trump admits to possessing a classified document during a meeting about mark meadows' memoir. according to "the times" the existence of the recording opens up new questions including what role mr. meadows might be playing in providing information to investigators. now, for weeks a central question in trump legal world has been where in the world is mark meadows, and what is he up to? and now we have an answer or at least a big part of an answer. today "the new york times" reports mr. mark meadows has testified before a federal grand jury. abc news reports tonight that as part of his testimony

investigators asked meadows about both of the special counsel's probes, mar-a-lago, and january 6th. in terms of timing we do not yet know when mr. meadows testified, but the bottom line is we do now know that the man there for pivotal meetings leading up to january 6th, the man who was one of trump's representatives to the national archives as it tried to obtain presidential records, that guy has spoken under oath to a federal grand jury. joining me now is congressman jamie raskin, democrat from maryland, former member of the january 6th committee and ranking member of the house oversight committee. thank you for being here tonight. as someone who knows the january 6th congressional investigation so well, i wonder what topics were off limit to your committee because mr. meadows was claiming executive privilege and presumably are not going to be off limit to the special counsel that you'd like to know about.

>> well, you'll recall that mark meadows pulled the plug on his participation with the committee when donald trump blew his top. originally meadows turned over thousands of texts and different communications, and we were expecting to have him come in and to pursue it, but donald trump put an end to all of that, and they made the assertion of executive privilege which, of course, we didn't accept because executive privilege doesn't cover criminal activity and he wasn't acting as a lawyer, so attorney-client privilege didn't operate. in any event, look, mark meadows was there from the beginning, so he would have been privy to conversations that donald trump was engaged in about all of his efforts to overthrow the presidential election of 2020, and so that would include trying to get vice president pence to step outside of his constitutional role and just to

proclaim donald trump the victor or kick the whole election into the house of representatives for so-called contingent election. he'd be perfectly well aware of and perhaps integrally involved in efforts to get the georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger just to find trump thousands of votes that didn't exist, the efforts to get the state legislatures to oust majorities for joe biden and just substitute slates of donald trump electors. so he would have been aware of all of that, but he also was clearly privy to the conversations and the actions surrounding the violent insurrection that took place at the capitol and recall cassidy hutchinson quoted mark meadows to the effect president trump was not trying to stop the ongoing insurrection that had

laid siege to the capitol. you'll recall some awkward questioning of the white house counsel pat cipollone where liz cheney said to him was everyone in the white house interested essentially in stopping the insurrection, and he said, yes, i can't think of anybody he wasn't. and he was asked the question i think by adam schiff of the president and she said, she was referring to the staff, and she said, no, i was referring to anyone in the white house. and he turned to his lawyer to determine how he should answer and he said, well, that's covered by attorney-client privilege and i was talking about the staff. so there clearly are people who understand what donald trump's determination and intent were during that 3-hour period when the commander in chief just went awol. nobody heard from him at the

army, nobody heard from him in the navy, marines, the joint chief of staff, d.c. police, capitol police, none of it. he was just missing. but there's certainly people who know what he was saying, what he was thinking and doing during that time, and one of those people is undoubtedly his former chief of staff mark meadows. >> yeah, when you outline theinable of scenarios where mark meadows played a pivotal role or was central in the discussions it becomes clear any cooperation from mr. meadows is at trump's legal peril. and i guess i wonder if you think that is a reason why you're seeing what you're seeing in congress because it increasingly looks like as the special counsel's probe -- the walls of the special counsel investigation grow closer and closer to donald trump, the efforts by his republican allies in congress seem more clearly designed to offer a lifeline to president trump by undermining the investigations themselves. i have to call everybody's

attention to the fact that jim jordan who's the chair of the judiciary committee today wrote a letter to a.g. garland demanding an un-redacted memorandum outlining the scope of mr. trump's probes regarding president trump and any supporting documentation related to his appointment as special counsel. this seems like that page in the trump playbook, congressman, where if you can't beat the investigation, investigate the investigators. is that what's happening right now? >> well, bingo, i think you've got the whole thing. mark meadows' testimony is of lethal peril to trump's legal defense if meadows tells the truth. and the truth here is really the enemy of the trump defense, which is why what's happening in congress is a sustained attack on anyone who dares investigate or prosecute donald trump. we saw it with district attorney

bragg in new york where they subpoenaed him, they attacked him, began to rail against him. now they're attacking the department of justice because of the progress of jack smith's special counsel investigation into multiple crimes that almost certainly were committed by donald trump. so they're going after the prosecutors and of course now they're trying to distract everybody by recycling the most antique claims that had been circulated by rudy giuliani about burisma and ukraine. they say that there's one little factoid they claim that was in this form 123 that the fbi made where there was a secondhand allegation by a ukrainian oligarch made to an undercover source who passed it onto the fbi, and they want to make that the basis for trying to discredit the whole fbi for you.

the problem for them is that attorney general william barr, who of course was donald trump's a.g., immediately appointed the u.s. attorney for the western district of pennsylvania, scot brady, to head up a team of prosecutors and fbi agents to fully investigate that -- that tip, and they came back completely empty-handed. and as the fbi senior personnel who came to see us this week in congress explained it to us, there are three levels of an fbi investigation. there's an assessment level, a preliminary investigation, and there's an investigation. and they were at the assessment level looking at that tip to determine if there's any factual basis to it, and they could find no sufficient factual basis to move to a preliminary investigation, and they just closed the investigation down and that was the end of it. now the republicans on the house

over sight committee said today let's go back to that original tip that was the basis for the whole department of justice investigation setup by william barr that went from january to august of 2020 and ended up with nothing and let's do the whole thing all over again. but it's really just an attempt to discredit and undermine the fbi and get donald trump's poll numbers up again, which is what chairman comer said was essentially the measure of the success of his committee. >> it's why they want to continue to investigate hillary clinton's role in the 2016 election and had about 2,000 benghazi investigations. congressman jamey raskin, thank you always for your time tonight. i really appreciate it. >> you bet. >> still more to come this evening. if you thought indicted congressman george santos was one of the most shall we say colorful characters in washington, d.c. these days, i have news for you. it is coming up.

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never lost. i've lost. you people did that to me in 2016. i came back to new hampshire to tell all of you that i intend to seek the republican nomination for president of the united states in 2024. >> former new jersey governor chris christie formally launched his 2024 presidential campaign at a town hall in new hampshire earlier this evening, and he's not the only one jumping into the republican primary pool this week. former vice president mike pence is expected to make a formal announcement for his bid for the presidency tomorrow after filing campaign paperwork yesterday. so that is one thing chris christie and mike pence have in common. they both would have announced their 2024 presidential campaigns earlier this week. they're also two men who have had their lives threatened by the man they once served. chris christie said it was

undeniable he got covid from trump landing him intensive care for weeks. and as for mike pence, there were the trump supporters chanting hang mike pence on january 6th. in addition to those two unusual commonalities there's also this common thread they share. it is entirely unclear which republican voters the presidential campaigns are courting. both of these men are pulling on average far behind president donald trump and ron desantis. mike pence is polling at just under 4%, chris christie at just 1%. thank you both for being here. steve, let me first start with you. what is reasonably -- emphasis on the word reasonably, the best case scenario for chris christie here? >> i think for chris christie it's some form in his mind of redemption because back in 2016 if you remember he had that

takedown moment of marco rubio in the debate. it had the effect of basically sealing new hampshire for trump. then christie drops out, endorses trump and really lined with trump then through the trump presidency. and the way things end with trump's presidency, first of all christie never quite got out of presidency what he wanted. he was repeatedly blocked and i think jared kushner has a lot to do with that. and it ends with christie saying, jeez, i put my neck on the line for this guy. i think christie relishes the opportunity. i don't know if he's going to get it, but you can see from that town hall tonight he relishes the opportunity to get on stage with donald trump and say things to donald trump's face in a way that he thinks no republican has in eight years said to donald trump to his face. i don't know if he's going to get that moment, but i think that's what he wants. >> yeah, i tend to agree with you. i think this is some ort of

personal redemption tour. but, mark, you had a great interview with christie in the atlantic from last month. and there's this amazing quote from christie. i'm not going to dwell on this, mark, christie said. you guys drive me crazy. all you want to talk about is trump. i'm sorry, i'm not going to waste my hour with you this morning which is a joy and a gift on just continuing to talking and asking trump questions from 18 different angles. >> he then went up and talked about trump in 18 different ways, what's so bizarre about that interview. he's extremely adept at potentially taking some real shots at donald trump. he knows donald trump batter than most. he's much more nimble at least

oratorally in a format like this. i don't think it's likely chris christie is ever going to have his own hail to the chief played for him and mike pence, too, but i do think that both of them but especially christie could be a very -- you know, not just entertaining but actually a very, very kind of lutitious and very, very compelling foil to donald trump if this goes forward the way i think it's going to go. >> yeah, steve, you alluded, you foreshadowed that christie may not actually make it to the stage with donald trump. tell me a bit about the biggest hurdles you see for him qualifying for the debates. >> those things have to happen with christie. number one, the first republican debate is going to be the end of august. either three national polls or two national and one of the early state polls. there was a national poll last

week for monmouth and christie is at zero. he's also got to get 40,000 donations. 40,000 people got to give to the campaign. >> and can they all be democrats? i'm just kidding. >> this is the interesting part, too. he's got to sign a pledge he will back the republican domny. >> that seems like the hardest hill to climb. >> it's interesting. if he's going to disqualifying trump, he's got to simultaneous say he'll superior court trump as the nomhy. the biggest hurdle is does trump show up? and then if trump shows up, if enough republicans meet the criteria because we're seeing more and more get in, they may have two divisions here and they may have two nights. so christie could qualify, trump could participate, and they're just not in the same night. >> there are a lot of hills to climb, mark, and then there's

just the reality of the support christie could get and sort of make the case for staying in the race. i think he spent more than 70 days in the state, held more than 160 events and 60 town halls, and he got 7% of the primary vote. i mean is christie the kind of guy that's just going to hang in this to hang in this? he wasn't that guy last time. >> i well, i mean he got to new hampshire. look, i mean the bulk of the campaign were those several months of 2015 where he did get on the stage. i think it's probably less likely than likely he'll get on a stage with trump. i do think, though, he doesn't nesarily have to get on that stage. he can give speeches like today. and i think, you know, christie is probably going to get more press attention than he deserved given how much chance he has of actually winning which is pretty strong. he's also good at one liners,

and frankly he does have the field to himself as someone who has the cajones and he can do things to get under donald trump's skill and you have a small spectacle that would draw him support. >> why is mike pence running, steve? >> i think mike pence -- well, there's a great tradition of vice presidents having made it this far. >> i mean, you know, this is a man with an extraordinary back story and not a lot of favor inside the republican party. >> it's interesting. if you look at that monmouth poll that came out last week and ask republican voters inleast popular is christie. by far it was 21 favorable, 41 unfavorable. the second least popular is pence, 46 favorable but 35%

unfavorable. he's always had a strong connection with evangelical voters. trump actually lost iowa in 2016, so i imagine if you're pence, you're looking at iowa and wondering, jeez, is there some way that i can tap into that, that i can get a win in iowa. and they all say if i can get a win in iowa i can roll it in here, here, and here. it usually doesn't work out, but i imagine there's something with the calculation. >> your even handedness with even the candidates facing the longest of odds is something to applaud. it's always great to see you. steve kornacki, thanks for joining me my friend. when we come back a look at the new normal in washington, d.c. and the grifters and

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remember back in 2015 when eric shock renovated. americans first learned about his anglo-file decor when this piece was published, quote, he's got a downtown abbey inspired office but representative aaron

shock did not want to talk about it. there's a reason because he'd broken congress' rules on accepting large gifts when he aloed a company called euro trash llc to provide him a free renovation free of charge. he may have also broken good taste. it led to a flurry of investigations into congressman shock's spending habits and ultimately it was discovered congressman shock had spent tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money and campaign funds on everything from private jet flights to katey perry tickets. within weeks of that reporting he resigned in disgrace which is very different how things go down now. in the never ending saga of congressman santose, last week the justice department charged him with 13 counts of fraud, money laundering, and theft of public funds, but he's steadfastly refused calls for

resignation, even as his case continues to get har yr. just today his lawyers were in court pleading with the federal judge not to reveal the names of people who posted santos' half a million dollars bond after his arrest. a judge denied that request and pending an appeal from santos we could learn as soon as this week who paid all that money to get santos out of jail as he awaits trial. but it's a stunning example how washington works in the post-trump era. before trump even the hint of a spending scandal could cause an up-and-coming congressman to resign in disgrace, but the trump era has created a new model for alleged grifters like george santos. and that phenomenon is at the center of a new book by the same writer who first broke the story of aaron shock's office renovation eight years ago. in it "the washington post"

writes washington felt different under trump. but what about once he left? who was allowed to become powerful and where would they draw that power? what were the rules of the game and how would you win? i wanted to explore these questions by spending time with people who were trying to make post-trump washington work for them. joining me now is "the washington post" author ben terrace, author of the big break. you've survived day one. it's a fascinating study of characters. it's at once damning and slightly hopeful i'll say. but for people who aren't familiar with the constellation of interesting personalities that now populate washington, d.c. in a post-trump era could you tell the story of robert strick because i think he's emblematic of this new generation. >> sure. he's a fascinating character. he's a lobbyist who before donald trump was never really successful, but when donald trump came to town and there was nobody around who was prepared

to kind of take advantage -- >> that's him. >> that's him. to take advantage of this new normal, strick was able to figure it out. and he made millions and millions of dollars under donald trump, and the way it started was he was celebrating at the four seasons hotel after donald trump won, and he was kind of a low level trump guy, and a dog sniffs his crotch which is bizarre and a woman comes is apologetic about it and turns out she works for the new zealand embassy and is having a difficult time connecting her country to donald trump because everybody's expecting hillary clinton was going to win. donald trump was hard to get in touch with. robert strick says, oh, i can do that. >> and i think to this day he's never met donald trump, is that right? >> he met him one time, as far as i can tell. he said he met him backstage, doing something with his hair, putting a lot of spray in his hair. that sounds right. he said he met him once and

doesn't have a strong connection, but he has a connection to make it work. >> and work it to the tune of millions of millions of dollars in contracts literally after a dog sniffs his crotch at the four seasons. and this is the new normal in washington. which at one point suggests to me the institutional barriers have been broken done, and maybe that in and of itself is a good thing, but also everybody is profiting to the degree it feels like a grift. i mean, what is your sense having looked at sort of the legacy of trump as it's shaped my hometown? >> sure. well, a lot of people can do that and just come in and it can be a grift, right? they can decide, all right, nobody is here taking advantage of this new normal, but i can. and they can sell their access to donald trump. robert strick was able to tell enough countries, look, i can get you access to the people that matter, and maybe he could. he had phone numbers to connect

them. and for a country that has billions of dollars, being able to spend just a couple million to be able to get in touch with a new administration is very valuable. >> you know, part of me says this is the legacy of donald trump, but coming in and being a creature not of washington but a new generation of policy makers and leaders and advocates was something brock did, and democrats looked at that as a good thing. do you see any cross-pollination between what happened in the aftermath of the obama years and how trump picked up on that and to some degree bastardized that. >> i think with the trump era everything got really weird, right? this book is filled with characters. i kind of think of it like veep, right? if you watch veep you'll laugh your way through it but also think this is dark and twisted and weird and not good. i think that's what the book does, right, it shows you can laugh your way through this book and also realize things are not in a good place right now. >> right.

and when politics mirrors veep it's hilarious and distressing at large. ben terris, author of big break, congrats. and it's a great time to be releasing it. we'll be right back. time to be releasing it we'll be right back. 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. detect this: living with hiv, i learned i can stay undetectable with fewer medicines. that's why i switched to dovato. dovato is for some adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment or replacing their current hiv-1 regimen. detect this: no other complete hiv pill uses fewer medicines to help keep you undetectable than dovato.

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one last thing, a very important programming note. tomorrow evening i will have the pleasure of having my good friends and hosts of the pod save america pod casts on this show to discuss everything from the looming potential of another trump indictment to current state of our democracy. we'll also talk about that ever expanding 2024 gop primary field, so stay tuned. you will not want to miss this one tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. that does it for us. i'll see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. but does it say to you that an indictment is near? do you believe -- >> i suspect it's near. i've said for a while that i think this is the most dangerous legal risk facin t