has basically stopped going to the floor over a right in the rules committee, which had a vote on a rule. speaker mccarthy responded to it. >> this is the difficulty. some of these members, they don't know what to ask for. >> what's he talking about? >> i mean, this is the conservative faction of the republican party, that group that prevented kevin mccarthy from easily becoming speaker. they're upset with the debt deal. they're going to do everything they can to make his life miserable as a result, including holding up procedural matters on messaging bills that are never going to become law. not a big problem now, but a big problem when the budget process begins. ai begins ♪♪

hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. things are getting intense for the ex-president. those viewers of this program know very well about the drip, drip, drip of new clues trump could soon be facing multiple criminal indictments from special counsel jack smith. today is no exception to the pattern of drips. in miami, one of jack smith's most senior prosecutors was back at a federal courthouse where a grand jury is meeting in the classified documents case. we should note that the washington, d.c. federal grand jury that jack smith has been working with in the january 6th investigation is also in session today. "new york times" reports that the special counsel's office has put trump's legal team on notice that the expresident is a target of the investigation into his handling of classified documents.

quote, the notification to trump's team by prosecutors from the office of the special counsel jack smith was the clearest signal yet that the former president is likely to face charges in the investigation. the notice suggested that prosecutors working for mr. smith had largely completed their investigation and were moving toward indictment. as politico reports, that letter from jack smith's office telling trump he's a target signalled special counsel jack smith is on the verge of a charging decision which appears to be, quote, days, if not hours, away. and then there's this brand new reporting from cnn today that a top former white house official tells cnn he testified to federal prosecutors that donald trump knew exactly how the declassification process works. quote, a key former white house official was interviewed earlier

this year by special counsel prosecutors investigating the handling of classified materials by both former president trump and president joe biden. during those voluntary interviews, the former official says there was a distinct difference in the line of questioning from prosecutors in the two probes. quote, while prosecutors in the trump case aggressively focused on any firsthand interactions with the former president, including conversations about how to properly declassify documents, prosecutors in the biden case are more concerned with the mechanics of packing and moving boxes into biden's home in delaware. the former official knew the proper process for declassifying documents and followed it correctly at times while in office. msnbc has not independently verified this account, but if the reporting is true, it's going to make donald trump's claim that he believed he could declassify things with his mind even more laughable than it

already is. harry lit man is back with us. also betsy wood rough swan is back and pete strzok is back. betsy, let's start with you on the latest signals you're picking up from trump's circle. >> what we know without a doubt is there's been a shift perhaps or increase in the gravitational pull from the florida grand jury in very recent days. a spokesperson for trump at the time of the mar-a-lago raid last summer has publicly confirmed that he spoke to a florida-based grand jury this week, and of course the video of a top jack smith prosecutor walking into that grand jury courthouse kind of speaks for itself. we know up until this point the

vast majority of the reporting has looked at a grand jury working out of washington, d.c. investigating trump, but know we know things in florida seem to be getting busier and more active. one of the pressing questions for the public as we wait for charges to be brought by jack smith's team is where those charges would be brought, whether in the d.c. area or in florida. of course for trump and his allies, florida is much preferable from their vantage point, because statistically speaking florida has a high percentage of donald trump supporters. prosecutors aren't supposed to decide where they think they're going to get the best jurors to somehow try to put their thumbs on the scale. those types of machinations tend

to be a little bit farfetched as a desperate effort to get through any sort of trial. but the fact there is increased activity in florida is significant and new that we're seeing just in recent days. what exactly it means in terms of what's going to happen in the next hours and days, we don't know, but it's a little bit different and important for people to keep their eyes on. >> tell me about the tea leaf reading about venue. >> let me start with the headline. i think if anything the reports that you read are understated. he's gotten a target letter. can count on two fingers the time doj has sent out target letters and not had an indictment. he's not on the verge of a charging decision. he has made a charging decision. you send out a target letter when you have subjectively decided to indict and you have

the goods on the target to give the target a chance either to come to the grand jury and explain -- not happening here -- or to have his defense team make a final hail mary. again, not happening here. first, even though we've known it's coming, there's kind of breathtaking aspect that doj are on the banks of the rubicon and ready to cross. now, all the venue stuff and southern district of florida, it's tricky and people are not fully able to decipher yet. there are not one, but two big smith folks down there. they've been going for a few weeks. it's either that they are going to take the mar-a-lago investigation and they're still going to bring charges and soon, but have a separate part of it relating to the obstruction cleaved off and brought in the southern district of florida,

where venue is solid so they don't have to worry. it's possible that it's something smaller involving a false statement around the time of mar-a-lago, but not connected with trump itself. it has looked more like that, but it's been going and getting pretty big, so it's looking more and more like they may actually bifurcate. the headline is the charges are coming soon separate and apart from that, and the target letter means the table is set. nothing left to do but ask the grand jury for charges. the grand jury in d.c. is also meeting today. >> pete strzok, i know there's been some news accounts about conspiracy to obstruct the investigation being under consideration by jack smith. is it possible that conspiracy to obstruct, which is the act that took place when trump left washington and left the would

say white house could be under investigation and potentially could be indicted in florida? >> well, i think that's certainly one of the things. with the caveat we only know what has leaked through defense counsel and witnesses. there's certainly this idea that whether or not the search by evan corcoran, whether things were moved around, whether trump and other people engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a thorough search and prevent things from being turned over. so that occurred well after trump left the presidency. it certainly occurred at mar-a-lago in florida. to try and draw some line this involved a conspiracy involving classified documents which were originally taken from washington, d.c., it's very attenuated. if you look at mar-a-lago in terms of a conspiracy about

obstructive behavior, that makes a very strong case to bring the case in the southern district of florida. one final note. completely agree with harry. he certainly has a lot more trial experience than i do, but all of the cases i ever took to trial with doj, never once having given a target letter to somebody did doj not indict. it is rare. i know harry's got two examples. i have none. so my anticipation is you don't send that letter unless you're going to indict and you don't send it early. you send it when you're ready to indict. i agree, i expect days or a week or two, but not more. >> let me ask a technical question of both of you. is it possible he has been indicted and it hasn't been made public yet? >> i think the short answer is it's possible, but the short answer is no. to follow up pete's point, on

conspiracy, the venue statute says it's the place where it was committed, but you can also have crimes. there's a separate statute that begins in one and ends in another. a conspiracy would actually be a way potentially of bridging the unlawful taking and the obstruction. that would actually be a theory that would take you through both. i think the doj appears skittish about putting all their eggs in the d.c. basket. on your question, i don't think it's happened. i think we'll know when it does. it would be sealed for a couple hours and presented to a judge, but that's not what we're talking about. >> betsy, one of our tells over the last several years has been trump himself. when he was under investigation

by robert mueller, it was the all caps threats, his pleas for a roy cohen or whoever he thought would shield him from his own justice department. if you fast forward, i guess it was more recently his grave disappointment he's been expressing toward bill barr and other ex-doj officials. not sure what he thinks they could be doing. they certainly did a heck of a lot when they were there. what do you decipher in the tweet, the all caps did nothing wrong, the fixation of the location of president joe biden's presidential office, the witch hunt, the election interference, which is his new claim that he likes to make at the prospect of being held criminally accountable for crimes largely committed in broad daylight. what do you see in the language of his own tweets, or truths, whatever they're called? >> social media messages.

two things. first, these missives on their own, it's certainly clear trump recognizes he's in significant, enormous legal trouble and he's not thrilled about it. this is the type of rhetoric he's been pushing going all the way back to the very earliest days of the mueller investigation, seemingly operating under the assumption if he tweets with enough exclamation points and capital letters, it will somehow reduce the amount of legal jeopardy he faces. also, trump and his allies see political benefit to be had in positioning him as this potential victim or this person being attacked by the nefarious forces of the deep state. trump's team put out a campaign ad where it showed footage of real-life wolves in the woods next to images of federal law

enforcement officials and investigators who had investigated trump himself over the years. they believe there's political gain to be had in creating this perception that federal law enforcement, the fbi and the justice department are desperate to go after the trump movement as a whole, but somehow they have to bring charges against trump first in relationship to classified documents before they can go after every single trump supporter in america. that's also a theme trump has pushed out in his fund-raising ads and public statements, this idea that the deep state is trying to get to trump supporters, but they have to go through trump first. doesn't make any logical sense. clearly it's something that's helpful for trump and his team in terms of fund-raising and making money for his presidential election bid. that's why they're beating this drum so hard for so long.

it's simultaneously those two things going on for the former president. i think ultimately he's hoping that he'll be able to at least for the short time being be able to cash in on this serious legal threat he faces. >> there's no escaping the fact that is a distant second choice to not being indicted, charged or put on trial. i mean, he has tried to avoid criminal accountability since he's been on planet earth. as a shoddy businessman, he positions himself between shoddy and flagrantly criminal for his entire life. i understand your point, this is a way to make lemonade out of lemons. i want to talk about some of the players. the investigation on the doj side is by design because they do abide by the norms where a

defendant or target still has a right to due process. the leaks are not coming from there, but there are some appearances that give us some clues. i want, pete strzok, to ask you about your tweet. you write, both david harvick who tried cases against john edwards and former virginia governor mcdonald and long time national security prosecutor are in miami. tell us what david harback is and tell us the significance of working with jack smith when he was running and bringing public corruption cases. >> he was a long time prosecutor who worked public corruption cases. both senator john edwards as well as governor mcdonald, worked those cases. mcdonald i think went to the

supreme court and was ultimately overturned. he's a very experienced prosecutor. he served at the department of justice where he had throughout his career interactions with jack smith. he is a seasoned prosecutor, as is jay brad, who is also down in florida. there is some indication yesterday that he may have been the attorney who was leading the questioning of butte witch. he served as the head of the litigation unit within doj's office of intelligence. he understands very well in the context of when you're dealing with classified information either as an element of a crime and using national classified information at trial, all the ins and outs, both of these

prosecutors are very seasoned prosecutors. they have practiced law easily for 20 years. they are the heavy hitters you bring in if you're trying to wrap up witnesses, certainly if you're trying to present a theory of the case, a big presentation to the grand jury to try and get an indictment. i would expect people like david and jay are the folks that would be presenting this. the fact that they're both down in miami yesterday and today tells me there are a lot of momentous things potentially occurring before the grand jury right now. >> i just want to put out there brand new reporting from cnn on this witness that testified to trump's intimate knowledge about declassi declassification. the former official described working with trump and his top advisors to properly declassify certain documents including a 2018 congressional memo related to the russia investigation.

john eisenberg met with trump to discuss declassifying the memo. they redacted the memo by hand for declassification and relief based onon ice eisenberg's guidance. that includes former white house counsel john mcgahn and former white house chief of staff john kelly. i remember when i read this cnn reporting about donald trump's zeal to declassify things. the notes with the call from zelenskyy for put in a lockdown

because i think they were trying to figure out what to do about what trump had done on that call. trump was pushing for declassification. he had to have more contacts with more lawyers. eisenberg i think comes up in the mueller report as well as someone who was involved with trump. but trump was pushing to declassify materials related to the russia investigation from day one of his presidency. there may be no former president more steeped in the declassification process than donald trump. what is the depth of witnesses that you think jack smith has brought to bear to prove that point if he thinks that's important to his case? >> 15, 50,000. we're so, so over the top. first of all, you're completely right about trump. remember, early on he blundered and gave away classified information in a meeting with russian officials and they had

to scramble to declassify it. if he could somehow wave his hand do it, that wouldn't have been necessary. this is very strong evidence not only was he told, but he knew how to do it and did do it right. what's left for him to say? we already had mountainous evidence and now the mountain is just a little bit higher. one more quick point about brat. he went down in june to have the subpoena and was basically fooled by corcoran or left with that piece of paper and the 38 documents and told that's all there is here. thereafter the search came out, but he personally went down on that june day and it's significant. >> do you think he was fooled and hoodwinked?

it seems from some of their filings that they were pretty aware of what they weren't being told at the time. >> my best guess is yes, because the evidence came out after they did the search warrant even on donald trump. this is what seems so strong about the subpoena point to me. you get a subpoena, you say you've complied with it. man, that is such a clear criminal line to have crossed. i can well imagine. i'm sure he was suspicious when they told him don't look in the storage room, et cetera. but yeah, i think you would leave thinking, all right, this is what we've been told in a legal document, and then when they found out they were furious and went for the search warrant. >> it's like a child who's told don't look in there. it's very suspicious from go.

there are a lot more drip, drips drips we want to make sure we cover before we move on as we continue to wait and watch. we're also going to move onto voters and democracy and how a decision from the u.s. supreme court affects both. the supreme court struck down today a congressional map that limited the voice and votes of black voters. we'll ask our friends and experts what it could mean for more states if more cases make their way to the supreme court. and later in the program, congressman jamie raskin will be our guest on what could be an historic first for our country. all those stories and more. couy all those stories and more

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this was not just extreme carelessness with classified material, which is still totally disqualifying. this is calculated, deliberate, premeditated misconduct, followed by a coverup that included false statements and lies to congress, the media and the american people. >> we know what he thinks to people who should do any of that. remember? lock her up. that was trump describing his own conduct. well, i guess if the shoe fits, that's all i have to say about that. what is it like to investigate someone for whom justice is completely blind, deaf, dumb and for whom attacking the fbi and

the institutions he once led -- because he's been compard to a crime family by so many prosecutors starting the james comey, we sometimes slide into covering him like he is one. he's the former commander in chief under investigation for violating the espionage act. that was how he felt about mishandling classified documents before he was president. now that he's been president, he's much more cavalier about it. what are the national security stakes to getting this right? >> they're huge. the fact of the matter is you have the immediate concern of what have did he do with these documents that the government has back? and we're not sure the government has all of them back. are there more he's hoarding in some secret spot? the question is, what did he do with those documents, what

damage might have been caused and how do you mitigate the damage? then there's the prospective damage as well. every single ally of the united states, whether in the u.k. or germany or australia or taiwan or japan or wherever they may be are looking at the united states and watching donald trump and hearing the stories about him talking garbage about general milley and waving around classified war plans for iran. every one of the intelligence services in these countries are scratching their heads and saying how much can we trust the united states in the long run to protect our sensitive information if we share it? in a terrorism context and wartime context, hopefully that relationship is robust and ongoing. but when they look at somebody who's the presumptive nominee for the 2024 presidential

election, every single nation overseas is wondering whether or not they need to reassess their intelligence relationship with the united states. how on earth does a cia officer approach a russian or chinese intelligence officer and say literally put your life in my hands and betray your country and give me your secrets and i will protect you when that intelligence officer is staring at trump making these outlandish statements that he magically in his head declassified things, are you going to risk your life for somebody like that? of course not. there's a huge series of negative impacts on the united states looking backwards as well as forwards. that's what's at stake. >> what's amazing to me is who's not defending donald trump. there's no mattis statement saying i never in my time as

secretary of defense saying i never saw this behavior. there's no statement from john ratcliffe. there is no one on the record saying they never saw trump mishandle classified information. what is the sort of republican national security establishment think? we know what bill barr thinks. he thinks donald trump's goose is cooked. is he speaking for more than just himself? >> i think in general barr is very well respected among trump's senior national security advisors and cabinet officials, obviously not everyone, but especially in those final weeks and days of the trump administration barr was out there saying things that other trump cabinet level officials weren't saying. whatever you make of that, it was something he was comfortable doing. of course, he left the trump administration prior to the

january 6th catastrophe, told trump that the voter fraud allegations were nonsense. that was something that shored up the credibility that he had among his trump inner circle of national security personnel. i think it's safe to say that what barr is saying now about trump's very real legal problems would reflect a broader opinion among the people close to trump. the difference, of course, is that if you're a republican national security professional, if you're somebody who wants to work in that space and you're a calculating type and you look at the way the republican primary field is shaping up right now, look just at the poll numbers today, obviously pre any sort of potential indictment, trump is still leading the pack. many of these national security professionals are thinking less about what does the public need to know about the way trump handled this classified material and more about what's my next

job, what type of relationships do i need to maintain so i can get lobbying contracts. they are calculating that if trump gets back in power, he will no question remember what people are saying right now, and the reality is there's just a mercenary aspect to the way many on the right in the national security space think about what they say in this moment and the fact that trump is so aggressive going after anyone perceived as being critical or even insufficiently loyal. it's no secret to the people who potentially want to see personal benefit from a future trump administration. >> i'm sure you're right, but that's some sick stuff. if that's what they want, they should be figuring out how to chop up ukraine and give it to putin, because that's what he'll be looking for in his next national security team.

harry litman, you went the farthest in saying the most tantalizing things in this moment. i'm going to try to nail you down. we will not use the word imminent on this program, because i think the's over that. tell me what acknowledged receipt of a target letter means in terms of possible timing. >> 99 times out of 100, 999 out of a thousand, it means there's nothing left but to ask for charges, assuming the defendant doesn't go in and try to talk to the grand jury or give the department something which hasn't happened here. it's true a target letter doesn't specifically say it's coming tomorrow. what i said to you last week or

maybe tuesday, all of that is true. the table is completely set. the attorney general has signed off. otherwise you wouldn't get to the target. in practice, that's all that's left to do. now, it's true it doesn't mean tomorrow and the southern district of florida is a bit of a curve ball here, but it's the next step and almost invariably it follows in very short order. first, i'm confident that the table is set, nothing left to do for the charges they've told him about, and second, in the normal scheme of things it would be within one, two, three days, which would be my personal prediction. >> pete, last time there was a very high profile flash point in this, the court-approved search

of mar-a-lago, there was a reaction in the ether. someone, an armed individual sought to attack an fbi field office. knowing this is always possible, what preparations do you think are under way to protect the institutions? >> i think you'll see very similar to what you saw in new york with trump surrendering there much as fani willis has done in georgia alerting the court and the security folks around georgia, i would anticipate when an indictment is imminent, there would be some outreach to the secret service and also local law enforcement both in mar-a-lago as well as potentially around the white house and the capitol, d.c. police and things like that, but that may not occur until very close. i would not be surprised if at a very senior level, the director or deputy director of the fbi

might have reached out to secret service counterparts and generally discussed if it's coming, let's lay the groundwork of how we would coordinate. trump has to show up, be booked and fingerprinted, all of the things that occurred in new york. the concern, of course, is he has been on the campaign trail playing music from the january 6th choir, telling everybody that he is their retribution, inciting almost violence, and these commercials portraying prosecutors and law enforcement as wolves going after him is seeding an adversarial relationship to the point of violence. there's a real worry of how trump responds and how his extreme supporters respond to any potential indictment. i'm certain that is something on the minds of those within the fbi, the secret service and within local law enforcement most definitely down at

mar-a-lago and here in the nation's capital. >> thank you so much. up next for us, one state's gerrymandered policy at the expense of black voters was shot down, surprisingly, by the u.s. supreme court today. what the court had to say and what it could mean for more gop-led states. d mean for more gop-led states ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪

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. today the conservative majority supreme court delivered a surprise affirmation of the landmark voting rights act. it was a big win for voters in alabama. chief justice john roberts and brett kavanaugh joined the liberal justices to order alabama to redraw the map, affirming what voters alleged and what a lower court ruled, that the current map with which the 2022 midterms were decided and determined discriminates and dilutes the power of black voters in alabama with just one district out of seven where they'd likely be able to elect their candidate of choice, and that alabama's black population, more than a quarter of that state's population, was large enough and sufficiently compact

for a second majority black district. let's bring in mark elias. i don't start a lot of segments with today the supreme court surprised us, but today the supreme court surprised us. i wonder if it surprised you. >> i won't say it surprised me. i should first point out that my law firm represented one of the set of plaintiffs who won in the supreme court today. if you follow the argument and you follow the briefs closely, for the supreme court to have not done what it did today would have required overturning 50 years of precedent. the test for section two in the redistricting space has been in place literally since the early 1980s. so what the supreme court did today was significant and it should put a smile on all of our

faces, but it was largely retaining a test that has proved successful in protecting minority voting rights for all this time. >> here's the dissent. let me read this to you from clarence thomas with alito, gorsuch and barrett also dissidenting. thomas wrote that his preferred outcome would not require the federal judiciary to decide the seats. he argued it was a racial entitlement to proportionate control of elective offices. just tell me how you read that. >> look, i think clarence thomas has been clear. he's been against the use of the voting rights act to protect minority voters against unfair districting for his entire time

as a judge. what he said is not surprising. the fact that justice kavanaugh joined and the fact that justice coney barrett didn't join is alarming. but the fact that justice thomas has this view has been well stated over time. >> does this have bearing on anything else likely to make it to the supreme court in the near term? >> i think this has a lot of bearing on the practicalities of how americans and particularly minority voters will experience the 2024 congressional elections. the ruling today virtually guaranteed a second minority opportunity district in alabama. it also does the same thing for louisiana. it almost certainly does the same thing for georgia. you start with three new minority opportunity districts off the bat. then you go to texas, where there's also a case that's going

on in this case bears on. so you could be talking about as few as three and as many as eight new minority opportunity districts in time for the 2024 election. that can have a lot of impact for minority communities and for the governing of the u.s. house. >> was there anything interesting about roberts and kavanaugh joining the liberal justices that is revelatory or makes you feel optimistic that there's some bloc on these issues, or do you think this is a one-off? how do you see roberts and kavanaugh voting with the liberal justices in terms of representing something more than the specifics in this case, if it does? >> two things, i think, should be taken away. number one is, i thought it was interesting that justice kavanaugh sort of makes a point about precedent and super precedent and how this would have been overturned on

longstanding precedent. given the willingness of this court to overturn longstanding precedent and maybe there's something to read into some upcoming cases that are coming where the court is being asked to overturn longstanding precedent. i want to touch on something we've talked on a lot, which is that the political branches are fundamentally failing democracy. republicans are using political power to entrench authoritarianism, to undermine free and fair elections and to really thwart the ability of voters to decide who wins elections. and the courts, as imperfect as they are, as problematic as they have been in so many ways, have been the one institution that whether you look in the post 2020 election period, it's the one institution that has been willing to bend in bend in ways harmful to democracy but not break. today the supreme court didn't break democracy. >> i guess that's the headline

and that's where we are. we're in as much trouble as i think we usually feel like we are. that stipulated, i hate to project onto the supreme court anything that is more than an impression. they are acutely aware, we know from their own statements, of the scrutiny of this court in a post roe era. we know from their speeches and statements and all the reaction to all the document-driven investigative journalism about clarence thomas' ethics violations. i wonder if there's an awareness of the sentence that 50 years of precedent was thrown out the window by a hyperpartisan hand picked trump supreme court. >> i would hope so. in some ways the justices as lifetime appointees have the ability to do anything they

want. it's hard to know what is motivating them at any one time, if it's actually legal philosophy, if it's a motion, if there's some concern about the perception of the court. we don't really know. this is an interesting, unusual decision in some ways. on the other hand, it shouldn't be so surprising or radical, because the voting rights act is not radical. it's been in place for decades now. as long as there's discrimination against americans preventing them from voting based on race, there will still be a need for it. so this is a preservation of precedent. it's what some people expected to see, but you didn't in the dobbs decision. there was a lot of discussion, you'll remember, that maybe the court wouldn't overturn roe, that they would maybe preserve it just for the sake of the institution of the supreme court. we didn't see that. it's become very hard to predict what they're doing and why. today was a win that the country

really, really needed, especially at a time which the republicans, unfortunately, are really fighting to take away some americans' right to vote and rather than trying to win over americans, they're trying to stop some from voting, which is so anti-democratic. >> we have a lot of conversations about that effort. that effort is so intense and vast and national and statewide and local and micro local. what is your assessment separate from this decision of where the republican efforts to make it harder to vote in so many places stand? >> oh, they're undeterred. i was thinking about this. you know, the headlines change. we were talking about talking a raising the debt ceiling. in the middle of that, republicans were passing voter discretion laws. now they're shifting to donald trump likely getting indicted

and republicans are still passing voter suppression laws. so the problem that we face in a democracy is that even on a day like today where we have something to celebrate about this one case in the supreme court, republican legislatures are meeting and are not getting new laws to make it harder for black and brown voters to vote and get it counted. so we can't get swept up in one indictment or one success on capitol hill without realizing the other side is committed to a longer-term agenda that is making our elections less fair and less free. >> thank you for keeping our eye on the ball around here. we appreciate you. a quick break for us. we'll be right back.

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(vo) this is sadie. she's on verizon, and she has the new myplan where she gets exactly what she wants and only pays for what she needs. she picks only the perks she wants and saves on every one! all with an incredible new iphone. act now and get iphone 14 pro on us when you switch. it's your verizon. mr. president, what do you say to americans to convince them they should trust the independence and fairness of the justice department when your predecessor donald trump repeatedly attacks it? >> you will notice, i have never once, not one single time suggested to the justice department what they should do or not bringing a charge. >> from my colleague here, it is news because it is not what happened during trump's presidency, right? that is what is supposed to happen. but as we enter into this period

where trump would like his supporters to think that biden had anything to do with this. it is abundantly clear that biden has nothing to do with what happens at the justice department. >> that's extra. it is important for him to continue to repeat that. not every american understandably knows exactly how the branches of government work and interact with each other. what we saw today was the president doing what he promised during his 2020 campaign which was a return to normalcy, turn down the temperature, turn down the volume, now that trump is back on the campaign trail, that will be really, i mean, i thought this was to biden's advantage. he's essentially showing that he is kind of the normal guy in the room, right? the adult in the room? so i think when you contrast that with donald trump being who he has always been, i think the contrast couldn't be clearer. >> and he's going about doing it

the more policy driven aspects of the job. people think it is a disadvantage not to be in the headlines. i think he seems to be in on the joke. >> i agree. but also, on the one hand, he's gotten so much criticism and scrutiny for his age. not that donald trump is any young chicken himself. but i think he's using it to his advantage in a moment like that. there is a kind of mr. rogers style, i'm going to sooth you and let you know that somebody is in control. don't be alarmed. and it is soothing. after what we went through as a country, it kind of works for him. it looks good on him. >> we'll keep watching. thank you. when we come back, much more on all of this. our guest will be congressman jamie raskin. you don't want to miss that. t w.

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i hope this trial reminds america how personal democracy is and how personal is the loss of democracy, too. >> american carnage. that's donald trump's true legacy. his desire to overthrow the people's election and seize the presidency, interrupt the counting of electoral college votes for the first time in american history. nearly toppled the constitutional order and brutalized hundreds and hundreds of people. >> if you allow impunity for attempts at unconstitutional seizures of power which is what a coup is, then you're inviting it again in the future.

hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. the january 6th committee's revelatory hearings and beyond, frankly, every single day, congressman jamie raskin of maryland is a steadfast defender of our democracy and the u.s. constitution. a champion of the idea that no one, not even a former president, is above the law. it's a belief currently being tested at the highest levels of the u.s. government as reporting on updates to the special counsel's twin investigations signals we could be on the precipice of a former president actually being federally indicted. it would be a first in our country's history. federal prosecutors have notified donald trump's legal team that the expresident is a target. the special counsel's investigation into the mishandling of classified documents which the "times" describes this way that the former president is likely to face charges in the investigation. as recently as yesterday, we saw witnesses testify before a grand

jury in miami. the "times" reports this about that, quote, should prosecutors ultimately charge trump, an outcome that he and some of his advisers are set to believe is likely, it remains an open question on whether they would file in washington, miami, or both cities. meanwhile the other probe jack smith is leading, the investigation into the insurrection, the president's efforts to overturn his defeat in 2020 does not appear at least publicly yet to be quite as far along as the documents investigation. it is moving steadily forward. trump ally and former white house strategist steve bannon has been subpoenaed by doj. the same man who said this on the day before the deadly capitol insurrection. >> all hell is going to break loose tomorrow. it is all converging and now we're on as i say, the point of attack, right? the point of attack. it's not going to happen like you think it will happen. okay?

it will be quite extraordinarily different. and all i can say is strap in. >> hmmm. bannon was previously charged with contempt of congress for refusing to cooperate with congressional subpoenas. in july he was convicted of two charges. in october, bannon was sentenced to four months in federal prison. he is appealing that ruling. the twin investigations by special counsel jack smith examining the conduct of an expresident who remains the front runner as we meet for the gop presidential nomination in 2024 signifies a remarkable time in our country, a test, really, of whether american democracy can withstand the expresident's relentless attacks against it. in a moment we will be joined by the aforementioned jamie raskin. we start at the table with top state department official and msnbc political analyst rick stengel, and mara gay who is still with us. this moment being overhyped. there is nothing imminent west

don't have a sense of timing. but it shouldn't be skimmed over either. a twice impeached, once indicted, liable for sexual abuse, exleader of our country, excommander in chief, has received a target letter from the department of justice. >> i agree. it is historical. it can't be overemphasized how, what a difference this is with the rest of american history. but just as trump has always stretched the normative window, we have to go ahead and say not only will the president be indicted and maybe be convicted. can a presidential candidate run for office who is indicted? who is convicted? who is even in prison? that's the new normative window that we're looking at. i don't want to go too far over my skis but that's the extraordinary thing that we're envisioning. >> i want to welcome into our

conversation, congressman jamie raskin, i know you have a lot of balls in the air but we're grateful to talk to you today. >> thank you for having me. >>. so of what we know we deserve as a democracy. we know from your powerful speeches on the floor, your role as a member of the select committee, and i wondered what your personal thoughts were when you saw the news that paul is in receipt of a target letter. >> well, it is obviously an extraordinary, anomaly in american history. he was an anomaly president that he did set himself at war against the constitutional order, all the way into his very last day in office when he tried to execute a political coup against the vice president and, in order to overturn the presidential election, and he helped to unleash a violent

insurrection against the government. insurrection is something that is condemned more than a half dozen times in our constitution. something that the framers of the constitution and the authors of the 14th amendment and others have taken very seriously throughout our history. but he's obviously someone who has elevated his own political ambitions, and his own money making ambitions, way above any loyalty to the constitution. so it is hard to see it as a surprise given everything that we learned during the january 6th hearings, during the impeachment trial. >> you're very much still the tip of the spear in defending democracy from republican attempts to destabilize and delegitimize our institutions. largely the fbi and doj by some of your republican colleagues. do you detect more fervor? or is it just a continuum? do you detect any reaction to

what may be coming down very soon for donald trump? >> well, i remember during the impeachment trial, speaking with a number of the republican senators and telling them that they needed to vote to convict out of loyalty to the constitution, out of concern for the republic because of the oaths they had sworn as senators to uphold and defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. because. oath they took as jurors. but if that didn't matter, they had to do to it protect their party because donald trump would destroy their party as well as everything that he gets involved with. and of course, seven republican senators crossed over and voted with 50 democrats for a 57-43 vote to convict. that wasn't enough. and i think a lot of these

republican senators have lived to regret their decision to act in a cultish and sycophantic manner. republicans are thinking they'll have to double down their investment in the trump family. perhaps others are saying maybe it is time to detach themselves. there is certainly a bunch of republicans jumping into the presidential race. but at this point, the party itself does behave very much like a religious cult. where everybody accepts whatever the leader tells them. >> i think that includes mitch mcconnell who gave a very impassioned speech for exactly what has come to pass. that the criminal justice system would hold trump accountable. he gave that speech on the floor after voted to acquit donald trump. i think he's probably one of the senators who regrets that. it may have cost him his majority. his current position about 2024 is that he'll vote for donald

trump if he's the nominee. how do you, at a human level, process the visceral rejection of trump's presidency and the ability to say they'll vote for him again in 2024? >> well, it is an especially stunning moment for senator mcconnell. recall that what he said at the time after the conviction vote took place in the senate was that he had no doubt that donald trump was factually and ethically and morally responsible for everything that had taken place. but he felt as if the senate lacked jurisdiction to conduct a trial over a president who had already left office, which collided with more than two centuries of precedent which the impeachment managers mobilized to demonstrate that that was perfectly normal. in fact, in many states, go when the republic started, you could only impeach someone after they left office. in any event, now he is in the

position of saying he will support a convicted sexual abuser, a defamer of women, a twice impeached president who the vast majority of people in congress voted to say had incited a violent insurrection against the union. and someone who clearly went into office with the idea of making as much money as possible, and collected millions and millions of dollars from foreign governments in blatant violation of the foreign government emoluments clause, which he was never impeached for but that's on us. that's not on him. we should have impeached him immediately for converting the presidency of the united states into an instrument of personal self-enrichment. >> chris christie's campaign, i don't know how much attention you paid to the republican primary. hopefully not very much. you have more important things to do. may put in motion some scrutiny somewhere the money that flowed between trump and his children

and foreign leaders and foreign governments. i want to ask you about conversations that we're lucky to have pretty regularly about the body of evidence that has already been amassed and handed over, and the pace of doj's investigation into january 6th. you and liz cheney and adam kinzinger and other members of the committee were as blunt as you could be. if there is not criminal accountability for trump for his actions in the aftermath of his defeat, then there is no rule of law. i think that was liz cheney's quote. and i think that you, if i'm misstating your public comments, please correct me. are you satisfied with the pace of the investigation into donald trump's role on january 6th? >> well, i mean, justice is never as fast-moving or satisfying as injustice is fast-moving and alarming and

demoralizing to people. so people always feel that the wheels of justice turn slowly compared to the way that injustice is visited upon victims, or visited upon the government. and so yeah, that's in the nature of justice and the justice system. if you're with dr. king, then you'll note that the arc of the moral universe is long. and i do think that trump and the trump family and his accomplices will get their come-uppance. and we can be proud that we've acted with democratic passion but also some democratic patience. we do believe in the presumption of innocence and we do believe in due process and all of those things precisely that donald trump wanted to trample when it came to his enemies, when he tried to order the department of justice to go after the people he didn't like and to suspend

the rule of law for his friends. but the rule of law means is holding people in power accountable for their actions. there's no society on earth where the poor and the downtrodden haven't been subject to the law. and everybody knows, if you sell marijuana on a corner in a state where it is illegal, you're going to end up in jail if they catch you. but for somebody in high-rank public office like donald trump, it is just an agonizingly slow process. i think we might be getting there now. and i do want to salute liz cheney and adam kinzinger along with the other members of the january 6th committee who understood with the senate not having reached the two-thirds bench mark, and therefore, donald trump beating the constitutional spread, the only way he was going to be held accountable was for the evidence

to get to prosecutors at different levels of our government. >> it seems that the federal investigation, and go there is so much more that we don't know about it than we do. but in terms of what has become public just this week that mark meadows has testified before a grand jury in both of those probes. that's the current understanding based on his accounts. that represents one person, who, although he turn over thousands of text messages which adam kinzinger called one of the blueprints and he describes him as a star witness. you didn't get to talk to him or interview him under oath. how significant is it to you? how much would you have liked to have known everything mark meadows knew in your investigation of january 6th? >> well, our position, of course, was that everybody owed congress his or her truthful testimony unless they had some constitutional privilege or immunity from testifying.

we were frustrated with a lot of the sandbagging that certain people put up. he did begin to participate and then he pulled the plug on his participation when donald trump expressed his displeasure with it. so he was kind of one foot in, one foot out. he was doing the hokey pokey there. it would have been good to have his entire testimony because as the chief of staff, he would have been probably more privy to donald trump's actual plans of action than anybody else. he would have had the bird's eye view on what was taking place, both in terms of the inside plan to get vice president pence to step outside of his constitutional role, and to somehow declare president trump the president, or to kick the whole proceeding into the house of representatives for the so-called contingent election. and he would have had the best sense of what donald trump was doing during that excruciaing

three-hour period when the commander in chief was completely awol and did nothing in order to defend the congress, the vice president, and the constitutional order, but on the contrary, it was sending out these tweets in order to further agitate and exacerbate the violence in the attack against pence. and the people who got those tweets were out there chanting, hang mike pence, hang mike pence. where exactly do you think they got the idea that the vice president was the person in the way of donald trump perpetuating his time in office? it only really could have been from the president himself. and it was very clear to us, from looking at the tweets and the public statements, that they were following his lead completely in targeting pence. >> and the committee was able to develop so much of that evidence through the text and through someone mark meadows called

cass. cassidy hutchinson who became one of the committee's star witnesses. the committee developed evidence that it was mark meadows who said this. he doesn't think they're doing anything wrong. the insurrectionists when they chanted "hang mike pence." do you think squarely against him, regarding the violence? >> well, assuming that he has testified fully and truthfully, if cassidy hutchinson is to be believed, and we have no reason the disbelieve. >> her in any way. she had no motive or incentive to lie and she seemed to be an entirely credible witness. then i imagine donald trump should be very afraid of what mark meadows is testifying about, because he would have been right there in the center of a lot of conversations, and he would have been right there hearing exactly what donald trump's designs were for january

6th. but i'm convinced from all of the evidence we got, both direct testimony and circumstantial evidence, that donald trump went to sleep on the night of january 5th, thinking he would figure out a way to maintain this hold on the presidency for another four years the next day. >> and that it included violence. the four crimes the committee referred certainly appear to, if not be directing jack smith, certainly influencing them. do you believe with mark meadows, some of the dramatic testimony that was developed was cassidy hutchinson's recounting the scene of trump in the back of the limo who desperately wanted to join the insurrectionists. all the audio that was played not from capitol police but from the presidential detail describing the weapons, the weaponry, the people hanging from trees, holding ar-style rifles. trump was undeterred in wanting to join the violence.

do you think that jack smith will be able to understand trump's intentions for joining the insurrectionist that's day? >> well, the more information he gets from the intimate advisers and the subordinates, the more he will know exactly what donald trump's plans were for the day. one possibility is that he thought they would be able to leverage the mob violence to put so much pressure on vice president pence that he would surrender to the plan to get pence to essentially excommunicate himself from the real constitutional design and somehow hand the presidency to trump. another possibility was that trump thought that he would march in with the mob, and that they would actually be able to storm the capitol and take things over, and trump would be able to impose martial law, which is what his disgraced former national security adviser

michael flynn had been urging him to do. to impose martial law and essentially, a state of siege over the city at that point. so we don't know the specifics of exactly what was running through donald trump's mind at that point. and that's why it is a matter of great interest, what exactly mark meadows is able to tell them. and i think steve bannon would probably have a sense of what that final end game analysis was. regardless of what the specifics were for the final couple hours, it's very clear in my mind that he was working both this indicted political coup strategy along with the insurrection violence. and they had activated the proud boys, the oath keepers, and other extremist groups, understanding precisely what they were capable of.

they had been engaged in violence over the last few days and if you look at their history going back, they had been engaged in violence over the last several weeks and months in different kinds of street protests. so they knew the role these people would play and they basically acted as vanguard shock troops at the very front of the rallying march that donald trump himself called. you'll remember when he sent out the tweet. i think it was on december 19th, saying be there. we'll be wild. there were thousands of people who didn't blank that meant. they showed up and they were able to follow the lead of the extreme. is in the front rows. >> and it's not just anyone saying that. this was the defense that many of them who were convicted of seditious conspiracy mounted. exactly what you just articulated. you've been so generous with your time. we're going to take advantage of that generosity and ask you to stick around through a very short break.

we'll ask you about what republicans are doing right now to beat down the integrity of the fbi. one of your colleagues has backed down from the threat to hold chris wray in contempt but it is all part of what you called a political maneuver to help the disgraced expresident and to paneleder to the far right of the republican party. we'll get to that after the break. also, ukraine has launched its much anticipated counteroffensive, aiming to take back territory occupied by russian invaders. our military experts will join us later in the hour. hour

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searching for a way, any way to damage joe biden and hang on to the white house, his personal lawyer rudy giuliani traveled to ukraine to try to dig up dirt on joe biden and his family. at the time, rudy brought an unverified claim about a bribery scheme involving joe biden back to the united states department it was found even by bill barr's justice department to be unsubstantiated. you may be wondering, why am i telling you this? what does this have to do with anything happening in the year 2023? it is that document, those communications that contains this years old unsubstantiated by bill barr's justice department claim that the republican house oversight jim comer subpoenaed the fbi for and threatened chris wray in contempt if it was not produced.

so the chairman was briefed by fbi officials for an hour and shown a minimally redacted version of this document. and yet, even after that briefing, comer said he will still hold wray in contempt. that was until last night when wray agreed to give full access to this document. after which, comer canceled the contempt vote. and then like a teenager, actually, that's mean to teenagers. then triumphantly tweeted, the fbi caved. you saw this document. first, if we are describing it incorrectly at all, please jump in with any additional context. what is this really about? >> well, it is an attempt to distract everybody from what is taking place with donald trump. they're looking for anything that they can throw at the fbi at this point. so they're recycling completely discredited and debunked

allegations in the old burisma ukraine theory. so rudy giuliani as you mentioned was promoting these claims in january 2020, it created an uproar among the maga right. they demanded something be done. so donald trump's own attorney general, william barr, who still then was very much in the all this of donald trump and had not yet declared his soon to be forthcoming allegations about the election bs, at that point, what barr did was he appointed scott brady, the u.s. attorney for the western district of pennsylvania to investigate the whole thing. all of the allegations about joe biden and his son, a ukraine corruption scheme, all of it, there was one of these 1023

forms that was created which is an fbi agent reporting an interview of a confidential human source. and so it was that form where this fbi agent correctly quoted a human source as saying, he had spoken to a ukrainian oligarch who recycled some allegations about the bidens being involved in a corruption scheme. now, the actual fbi informant said he had no way of knowing whether or not there was any underlying veracity to these allegations. that became part of the overall assessment that the, that this team of fbi agents and prosecutors was engaged in. as they explained it to the

chairman and me, there are three levels that the fbi can undertake along its investigative path. the first level is this assessment where they look at whatever information has come in and they determine whether or not there is such factual evidence to give rise to a reasonable suspicion that a claim took place. and if that quantum of evidence exists, they move to the next level. a preliminary investigation. from that they would move all the way to an investigation if a lot more evidence is determined. well, they never got from step one to step two because there simply wasn't sufficient evidence. so in other words, that tip that they keep talking about was part of a quantum of evidence which trump's own u.s. attorney in the western district of pennsylvania and a team of other prosecutors and fbi agents said was not part of enough body of evidence even to move to a preliminary investigation. and yet now, our gop colleagues

want to go back, pluck out that one piece of payment and that one tip from it and say that this is somehow some shocking revelation when it is already part of something that has been discredited and debunked in terms of accusations about joe biden being involved in some sort of corruption scheme. so that's what it is about. unfortunately, it takes a while to spain but they wanted to hold the fbi director in contempt of congress for the first time in american history for come playing with their subpoena. they wanted to see the document. he sent the document over. the chairman and i got to see it. then the chairman demanded that he get to keep the document and them, well, that's not how we at any rate our confidential human sources. nobody will ever give us any information because there are a lot of details that would clearly reveal the identity of that human source through the

republicans claim to be praising, but they would be endangering that person's security if it got out. in any event, the fbi has been extremely accommodating here and has bent over backwards. and now every member of our committee, i think the committee right now is at 46 or 47 members. that every member of our committee can go ahead and look at it. that's fine from my perspective. it is all part of an assess many process that led nowhere. so our gop colleagues are grasping at straws. >> do you worry that they're permanently moving the goalpost? what comey is alleging, he set up an intake for rudy giuliani. jeff berman, the attorney at sdny, to coalesce in the southern district of northern which had some of these cases. he sets up an intake for crazy

rudy who has no government role. in the impeachment trial it is clear he was running this parallel black, off the book government. he is alleging that with trump as president, bill barr as the attorney general, rudy who has this bizarre, unprecedented intake channel with the trump-appointed u.s. attorney examining his wacko bird times is claiming it was rigged? why is this worth anybody's time and legitimacy? >> that's the amazing thing. this he don't only attack democrat judges and democrats. it is really anathema in our system. but they attack republican prosecutors and republican judges if they don't do exactly what they want. so for example, 60 federal and state courts rejected every allegation of electoral corruption and fraud that trump

and his team advanced about the 2020 election. they won't even accept that. so they won't accept no for an answer from the department of justice if it doesn't conform to their pathological conspiracy theories. but they also won't accept yes from the department of justice, at left a the republicans on the oversight committee won't, when the doj is saying here's what you're looking for. check it out. and i heard that it was, and i can't verify this. i've heard from several members that it was only speaker mccarthy saying, there are a lot of moderate republicans really nervous about going after the fbi director like this. you've got to accept the fbi's offer in this case. they want to hold him in contempt for actually turning over a document. again, something that we were not able to find any precedent for in the history of congress.

that we would hold somebody in contempt for actually producing the document we were looking for. and then they moved the goalpost to say, well, we want to be able to take it home and do whatever we want. >> for sure on conservative media. so nice of you to be so generous of your time. i feel like we ask for ten minutes and we'll take 35. we'll let you go. thank you very much for starting us off today. >> my pleasure. >> thank you, sir. on the other side of the break, we'll shift gears. a major development to tell but in the war in ukraine. ukrainian forces launch go their long-awaited counteroffensive. we'll bring you the latest only after a quick break. don't go anywhere. and forgot where she was. [buzz] you can always spot a first timer. gain flings with oxi boost and febreze.

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crisis. today president zelenskyy visited himself. he visit ad medical facility on that trip. let's bring in our former deputy legal adviser to the national security council. also joining us from ukraine, live in kyiv, national security correspondent, greg, first tell me, take me inside how ukrainians talk about this. do they acknowledge either the government level or citizens on the street that the counteroffensive is underway? >> well, they really haven't. i'm sitting here in kyiv just a very short walk from the president's office. he just gave his nightly address a couple hours ago. and he made no mention of the counteroffensive. he talked about his trip down to kherson and the floods that he witnessed. the ukrainians have been very, very disciplined about this. we're hearing the russian military. we're hearing some sources in

the u.s. talk about it. we're getting bits and pieces from the battlefield. but the ukrainians have maintained this discipline that they promised. they're not going to talk about the offensive and it's not going to start with a big bang. it won't be shock and awe. probably a little here, a little there. the kind of thing we're getting bits and pieces of. >> and that is obviously, there is an operational security piece of that. there is a strategic piece of all that. but as someone who has helped us understand the long view and the strategy for victory and the ukrainian part, how do you see this moment in the war? >> i think greg is correct. so we're likely, we're seeing the early stages of what is potentially an offensive. we're seeing probing attacks, shaping operations. these are all reports from social media. i don't have any special knowledge. but these are the types of things that you're going to see in an offensive. you're going to see multiple access of an advance.

you will see attempts by the ukrainians to force the russians to make a decision. the wrong decision to commit the reserves along an access that is not their objective. once the reserves are committed, and not in a position to redeploy, you will see them take advantage of that and exploit. and in these early hours, what we're seeing the breakthroughs. we're seeing breakthroughs up to a mile, a mile and a half which is significant. that's probably the first or second line. still a tactical depth. when he with see breakthroughs at operational depth to do a large-scale development including places like bakhmut, then you will see the effects of the offensive. and i'm not surprised the ukrainians are keeping very tight-limited. they've been disciplined and they'll continue to stay discipline in the order to take advantage. situation. and frankly, cause and sow a great deal of doubt among the

russian leadership. >> greg, you have been to the area impacted by the dam attack. tell us what bunk that. >> yeah. the flooding has just covered this massive, massive area. it is a little unusual. if there's one merciful bit of news, the casualty count has been quite low. today led the, today they had the first confirmed death. the east bank controlled by the russians and the one on the west side controlled by the ukrainians. but the damage here is massive and long-term. it is the dam which will take years to rebuild. the hydro electric plan that was next to it. the homes, the rich agricultural grounds in southern ukraine that have been, this year's crops were wiped out and could be wiped out for years to come.

the ecological damage that many are predicting there. so just this massive long-term damage that we're looking at, although at least the death toll, the casualty count has been mercifully low so far. >> and then to see zelenskyy there surveying the damage. he still very much, into greg's reporting and to eugene's analysis, has what we don't see is a top priority, winning the war. but always an eye toward projecting strength and calm for his population. >> yes. i mean, i think and would say that it is a massive war crime, what has happened. people haven't actually verified who is responsible -- >> there's western and u.s. sources corroborating. >> i've been saying it is the russians from the beginning and getting criticized for that and the russians had access to the dam. it was mined. it is probably done as a

distraction against the counter invasion by ukrainians. it reminds me in 2014 when we were monitoring isis, and isis had mined a bridge, i mean, a dam in iraq and was going to flood iraq and force hundreds of thousands out. it is the kind of thing that the russians do. the russians evacuated that whole area a month ago. so i think it is pretty reliably them. i have to say, the whole counterinvasion, it reminds me of the months before d-day. we knew there would be an invasion and you were trying to persuade the germans, maybe it was further south. maybe it was in north africa. the ukrainians have been tied-lipped but they had given hints. they wanted to deceive the russians and hopefully they'll do so. >> it is a great historical echo.

rick mentioned war crimes. eugene, we can't have you here and not ask you about your work to hold putin accountable. i have to sneak in a break. we'll be right back.

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out at the direction >> this is a very timely week. currently in d.c. there's a senior delegation, the principal deputy director and ukrainian general and staff visiting for a weekti to be fbi, the departmen of defense, the department of justice, department of state, as well as congress and having substantive meetings. the dam was a topic of discussion. and it's a group specifically designed and brought together to hold the senior officials like vladimir putin and generals accountable for their crimes. these are military analysts with decades of experience, and in addition to that we've met with members of congress. so to the extent that washington can open its doors and arms to this group, that's happened.at i'm very hopeful about the

engagements we have had and the relationships that are being built and the bipartisan support that the group received on the hill yesterday, meeting a numben of different members, republican and democrat. >> rick, the president said today -- president joe biden said the fact of the matter is i believe we'll have the funding necessary to support ukraine as long as it takes. i believe that support will be real, everyone though you hear some voices today on capitol hill about whether or not we should continue to support ukraine and for how long you continue to support them. he chooses his words carefully when it comes to ukraine. i think he knows he has good bipartisan support in the leaders on the republican side, but it's a pretty forward leaning statement from him. >> yes, and the statement that it evoked was what zelenskyy said last week, saying there might be a change of leadership in the united states. he reads the newspapers, too, and maybe even it's provocation for their counter invasion. they want to get it over before the presidential election. so, eyes, biden has been

stalwart. in fact, the prime minster sunak said the u.s. has led this and we've supported them. it continues. >> it's probably a good drinking game. like, who's going faster, jack smith or president zelenskyy? obviously the stakes much higher for zelenskyy and the people of ukraine. thank you very much for being with us today. quick break for us. we'll be right back. ick break fs we'll be right back.

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lgbtq americans, especially children, you're loved, you're heard, and this administration has your back, and i mean it. we are not relenting one single second to make sure that they're protected. >> it was an announcement intended to be made in front of thousands on the white house lawn, but poor air quality force that the event to move inside. that was the pride month celebration. but still, president joe biden today unveiled new initiatives designed to help and support the lgbtq community, measures like protecting those who need it from attack, helping young people deal with mental health issues and homelessness, even countering book bans. we'll keep an eye on this for you. we'll bring you coverage of that next week. in the meantime, another break for us. we'll be right back. another brk for us we'll be right back. start your day with nature made.

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