our climate keeps warming, and the impacts we're feeling here and all over the county, we had the smoke in the north east where the sky was orange there just like it was for us in fall of 2020. we wait another day to take action and the science is there with us. >> the discovery process will be crucial. thank you for joining us. just want to read a couple statements from exxon and chevron. suits like this continue to waste time and do nothing to address climate change. this suit has no impact on our intention to invest billions of dollars to leading the way in thoughtful energy transition. they called it unconstitutional and a counter productive distraction. again, jessica, thank you very much for coming on. we appreciate it. and that is going to do it for me today. "deadline white house" starts right now. hi, everyone.

. it's 4:00 in the east. happy friday. it is just ahead of the one-year anniversary of the earthquake that completely up ended women's health and american politics. of course we're talking about the supreme court ruling overturning roe v. wade and eliminating abortion access and abortion rights for millions of american women. looking back it is hard to understate the legacy of that dobbs decision. first there is, of course, the rulings near immediate impact on women and reproductive health care in america. "the new york times" reports this. in the year since roe fell, 20 states enacted laws banning or restricting abortion, forcing a rapid shift in the country's patchwork of abortion access. at least 61 clinics, planned parenthood facilities, and doctors offices stopped offering abortions in the last year. most were in the 14 states that banned abortion outright, but the uncertainty surrounding laws

in several other states also caused providesers there to shutdown. all of it has sparked a political backlash that ended up being nothing short of a paradigm shift. the anger felt by many voters in the wake of dobbs blunted a wave in the 2022 elections. as "the new york times" reports in the years since polling shows what had been considered stable ground has begun to shift. for the first time a majority of americans say abortion is morally acceptable. a majority now believes abortion laws are too strict. they are significantly more likely to identify in the language of polls as pro-choice over pro-life for the first time in two decades. and more voters than ever say they will vote only for candidates who share their views on abortion with a twist. while republicans and those identifying as pro-life have historically been most likely to see abortion as a litmus test, now they're less motivated by it

while democrats, on the other hand, and those identifying as pro-choice are far more so. despite the backlash the war over abortion access has entered new ground, and major issues could once again be decided by this supreme court. "the washington post" reports this. access could be upended again by the 2024 presidential election and several pending court decisions. strict bans are blocked by the courts in at least six states. while the supreme court may take up a case, it could revoke government approval of a key abortion drug used nationwide. in addition, a new ban in florida could soon halt most abortions in the country's third most populous state if the state supreme court allows it to take effect. this shifting of the political tectonic plates one year after dobbs is where we begin today with some of our favorite friends and experts. law professor at the university of california irvine, outspoken advocate for reproductive rights, michelle goodwin is

back. also joining us former white house health policy director and currently an msnbc medical contribute, were our friend dr. kavita patel is here, and the cochair of the american bridge and of planned parenthood is back. we've been having conversations on and off tv about this journey, the need to protect the right to abortion health care, but really over the last year to see the country track with where all of your decades of work has always been, what are your personal feelings one year from the dobbs decision? >> well, i think one of the most interesting take-aways after a year of this is that it is absolutely clear this country and the voters in this country support abortion rights. you said it in the polling you showed, it's only gotten stronger. i think as people have actually

had to face what does it mean to take away the right of people to make decisions about their pregnancy. it's no longer a hypothetical. and that actually changes peoples feelings, and as we know more people are talking about abortion. many people know someone who's had an abortion, and i think it's come out in the open. and the last thing interesting to me about this is as more and more people have realized the rest of the country is pro-choice as we saw in kansas and have continued to see more and more people feel confident saying i am, too, and that includes republicans and independents. >> cecile, the banner under which a majority of americans reside is pro-choice america, which always meant the choice, you know, more options in front of you. i wonder how impactful you think the stories are we've always focused with you on the real

impact of real women whether it's in texas or other states. and the country got to know amanda who lost willow, a daughter she was pregnant with, and she almost died seeking health care after she lost that pregnancy. the country got to know ob/gyns trying to take care of young, young, young victims of rape who are now under criminal scrutiny. the country has gotten to know the faces, young, female, scared, and very much under the thumb if the republicans have their way of not just judgment but potential criminality. how impactful do you think that's been over the last year? >> it's made a huge difference. and in fact i'm sure you saw the report this week just a major poll of ob/gyns in the country two-thirds of who are saying dobbss has eliminated their ability to make the best decisions for their patients, patients who often have

complicated pregnancies, miscarriages, atopic pregnancies. two-thirds of the doctors also said it's a huge problem now of the growing inequity in health care and particularly for black women who already have had three times -- more likely to die of pregnancy related complications than other women. that's becoming more severe. and one of the last things i think is just going to have such a long effect is the loss of ob/gyns. i know in texas 19% fewer ob/gyn residents have applied to do their residency in the state of texas, a state who already half the counties don't even have an ob/gyn. this is the effect of dobbs, it's even far beyond just the lack of access to abortion. it's affecting the lack of access for women to health care at all. >> i want to turn to that impact on care and on the doctors who would provide it. let me put up what this patchwork looks like asf of

today. it changes all the time. this is map of states where abortion is protectioned for now. it's blue on our map. the banned states most or all of them had trigger laws that banned abortion after the supreme court ruling. and then the highly restricted states. vast swaths of the country are not blue, so vast swaths of the country are either banned or restricted, you know, reproductive health care. how are women and doctors faring? >> we now have some data this year that follows the dobbs decision. we know there's a shift in where people are getting abortion care. if you put up that map, there's numbers to it. there were 93,000 fewer legal abortions in states that banned or had fewer restrictions, and that's something we should take in light of the fact there was an increase of unt 69,000 legal

abortions in states that you show as blue where abortion remained legal. to get to the stories a woman in the south the new travel time for her to be able to access i'll just call it basic health care. this isn't abortion care. people don't come into our offices with signs that say my last menstrual period was such, and i'm at exactly 5 weeks and 6 days. we take care of the person in front of us, but when they need to travel someplace, that time for a black woman in texas can be one to two full workdays. when you think about texas being one of the states that failed to expand medicaid, nicolle, that just compounds the barriers in access to care and makes their lives even shorter. and to the point that cecile raised about doctors, it is widespread. this graduating class of medical students for the first time has said they're cynical about entering careers and not just obstetrics and gynecology but

anything where they feel they can have some kind of criminal activity. that includes primary care, services where we concentrate in womens health care for preventative services. that is not just going to affect abortion care and a discreet amount of services, that's going to affect anyone who has any health needs whatsoever and their families. think about who's taking care of children. the most common person that presents for any sort of abortion care, nicolle, is someone who already has children in their household and people who are working. so we need to put names and faces and stories so that people understand this is your family member, this is your neighbor, this is you. >> you know, michelle, they've both mentioned the disproportionate impact on women of color. they're not just women of color they're stutesticly moms of color. this is something you and others warned about before the supreme court took this momentous step,

but the damage has been felt and experienced in those communities disproportionately as well. what are your thoughts about how we continue or improve our ability to tell their stories? >>. >> well, let's be clear, any woman of any reproductive capacity, a person of reproductive capacity has been harmed by this. there's a dignity harm if you even have the resources but you have to leave your state, you have to leave your family and travel to new york or california or colorado in order to get that health care. that is still a dignity harm and an inconvenience and a cost. it just happens to be that the cost can also be deadly if you happen to be poor, a woman of color, a black woman, that already nationally 3 1/2 times more likely to die carrying a pregnancy to term than their white counter parts. but we know in the backdrop of abortion care, and in the united states the supreme court has already acknowledged that you're

14 time more likely to guy than carrying a pregnancy to term in the united states than having an abortion. so when we add that to it and the knowledge that the supreme court has about that and the knowledge that these states department of health already have about this, then we really are to talk about what this really means. and it is the equivalent of setting people up for a death sentence. and that's not hyperbole. that happens to be significantly where we are in the united states. the leading country in maternal mortality and also mutarnal mubordty. which means if you happen to survive a pregnancy in a state like mississippi or louisiana or florida or alabama, you might survive with life threatening conditions that follow you for the rest of your life. and as you've mentioned so many of these women have already been mothers. >> you know, michelle, that's

what makes the political conversation very unsatisfying. of course a vast majority of americans say this isn't what i wanted. and of course a vast majority of americans are interested in voting in people who wouldn't have us live in a country akin to the handmaid's tale. but here we are. >> that's right. what you're pointing to is the immorality of this. this is what the vice president has spoken to. and it's clear to us because it's clear to the supreme court, because they've already acknowledged this at the supreme court. so that begs the question do they care? do the lawmakers who have enacted these abortion bans do they care about the women and girls in their states? when we think about the cruelty of laws and the fact they're banning abortions without making exceptions for the cases of rape or incest, and as you mention

right after dobbs we saw the story of a 10-year-old girl having to flee one state in order to get to another in order to have that pregnancy terminate. she was fleeing ohio to get to indiana. there were lawmakers after that who said it was a hoax, it couldn't be, showing a grave naivety and ignorance, showing their own lack of concern because of course the story was real. but she wasn't alone. we've also seen judges participate in this with denying teenagers the ability to be able to get a judicial bypass. in one case in florida with a judge saying that the young woman was too immature to have an abortion, but that leaves us with a question, mature enough to be a parent? and this is the landscape in the united states. and it's far filled from any other peer country at all. >> you know, cecile, people say that politics and running for office is an x-ray some people say about television as well, you're revealed. this issue is an x-ray.

it's revealed the ineptitude of judges as michelle is alluding to. it's revealed the craven nature of those who wanted to pack the supreme court with people with extreme views who said in their confirmation hearing one thing and got to the court and did a different thing. it's also revealed another thing michelle's talking about, the bans that some republicans are pushing are opposed by 87 and 93% of americans. 87% of bans eliminate the exception in cases of rape or incest. 93% of all americans oppose bans that eliminate exceptions for life of the mother. and yet that is the practical impact of some of the republican bans. what does that say that a majority of the republicans running to be the nominee of their party have that position that puts them on the other side of 87 and 93% of all americans? >> it's totally frightening. and it's -- i mean this was one of the things i know we talked

about this after the election. it was the mid-term elections were just a route on republicans. there was no doubt that the reason why democrats were successful across the country was on the issue of choice. we just saw recently, you know, young people in the state of wisconsin standing in line to vote on the supreme court race. that just doesn't happen, so there is no way for the voters to be clearer, and yet the republican party seems that they're going even -- even more extreme. and the ron desantis signing basically a complete ban of abortion in the state of florida is just one example. so it's very clear they don't care what the american feel. they don't care what's happening to women. and i think that what the other thing we're seeing, of course, the supreme court seemed today say, okay, this is just going to be a states issue, we're going to go state by state. but now they don't want is to be a state by state issue.

they're trying to prevent us from passing ballot initiatives in states like ohio because they've seen voters don't like these aborz bans and that's why i think they're trying to now push for a federal ban. that's their goal is to eliminate access for safe and legal abortion for every person in this country. >> to be accurate, there wouldn't be anymore blue on the map if that were to happen, right, cecile? >> right. and honestly i think your map is very optimistic here. if you really look what's happening, look at florida, georgia, south carolina, north carolina, there's a pretty -- we're pretty close to the entire southern united states being a complete desert for abortion care. i was just talking to one of the clinicians in north carolina she covered a clinic and found a woman who had been sleeping overnight in her car, driven from florida, women from austin driving to asheville overnight

to get an abortion. well, very soon that's not going to be possible. and so it's -- as bad as it is now, it's going to be total chaos not too long from now. and again, as we've talked about this story isn't going to get better. one of the things i didn't mention in this ob/gyn survey that's amazing to me and so horrifying, more and more women are calling about sterilization. they're calling to get sterilized because they cannot face another unintended pregnancy, and that is wrong. >> dr. patel, i had heard that from a gynecologist that i know in new york city who said she had been asked to or she performed more sterilization surgeries in new york city that at any point in her career for the reason that cecile is articulating, that women don't trust the policies and the

ground underneath them not to shift so abruptly that they won't have access to health care. are you seeing or hearing that anecdotally? >> yeah. and the same thing along the lines of medication abortions even in states -- i practice in the state of maryland where we've had a governor who has made it very clear there will be no undermining of access to reproductive services. and we've seen not just in maryland but across a lot of those blue states you've show, we've seen statistical increase in and clarification people can get access to medication abortion. we've epicene it in multiple forms. i think this has made the case that abortion is health care. and what the post-dobbs world has said you can't segregate abortion. all of these are conditions that are incredibly complicated to carve out. we don't have an on and off switch for the life for the

health of a mother and that is an absurd proposition. if i said to you i would only treat depression if a person is suicidal you would tell me i'm criminal and committing malpractice, which i would be. and that's what we're asking clinicians to do. it's no surprise the public doesn't even have trust in health care professionals because of this. that was another part of that recent survey that cecile is mentioning from kaiser family foundation that we've also m.d. mined trust in people such as myself because if you talk to me and i have to disclose something in these states, you could be arrested, i could be arrested. that's crazy. >> that's so crazy. i want to bring into the conversation what this president and vice president and administration are trying to do. let me read righter's reporting on the executive order he's expected to sign while we're on the air. u.s. president joe biden on friday will sign an executive order designed to protect and expand access to contraception after a supreme court ruling last year overturning the

constitutional right to abortion raised fears that birth control could also face restrictions. biden's senior advisor told reporters that the order will increase ways for women to access contraception and lower out-of-pocket costs. she said the order directs federal departments to consider requiring private insurers to offer expanded contraceptive options under the affordable care act such as covering more than one product and stream lining the process for obtaining care. dr. patel, it sounds like a very well intended but still potentially confusing additional step, but obviously the administration doing everything they can from their perch to try to protect access to contraception. >> yeah, i think it's important. and look, we've had some regulatory milestones where we've had conversations about over-the-counter contraceptions. so making this available kind of at the point where women can get access to oral contraception as needed. so i think this is great, but

it's a little bit like an umbrella in a hurricane. like, sure, it might do something and make you feel better but we're missing an overall point. and that underscores your comment voters are reacting. we need to see a continuous ground swell of that type of reaction on a daily basis because that's what's happening to women on a daily basis. it is not an overstatement or hyperbole to say women are dying every day because of this, and i think that's the point that needs to keep coming across. >> all right, no one is going anywhere. when we all come back we're continuing to watch and wait for president joe biden's remarks marking one year since the overturning of roe. plus we'll hear from someone whose life has dramatically changed over the last year. much more ahead for us. plus attorney general merrick garland today reaffirming the prosecutor in the hunter biden case had full and complete independence when it came to investigating and any prosecutorial decision making regarding the president's son. those new remarks come as

outrage on the right continues to grow. and later in the show breaking down the very real legal troubles the ex-president finds himself in and the very real risk he poses to u.s. national security today, right now. we'll have that conversation with the former principal director of national intelligence, sue gordon. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere today. a quick. don't go anywhere today. 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. ♪ so, i got this app from experian. it's got everything i need to help my finances. got my fico® score, raised it instantly, i even found new ways to save. all right here. free. and fast.

see all you can do with the free experian app. download it now. ♪ the thought of getting screened ♪ ♪ for colon cancer made me queasy. ♪ ♪ but now i've found a way that's right for me. ♪ ♪ feels more easy. ♪ ♪ my doc and i agreed. ♪ ♪ i pick the time. ♪ ♪ today's a good day. ♪ ♪ i screened with cologuard and did it my way! ♪ cologuard is a one-of-a kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45 plus at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪ i did it my way! ♪ (vo) crabfest is back at red lobster. ask your provider for cologuard. when you can choose your crab, and one of three new flavors like roasted garlic butter... ...this is not your grandpa's crabfest... ...unless grandpa's got flavor. dayumm! crabfest is here for a limited time. welcome to fun dining. hi, i'm jason and i've lost 202 pounds on golo. so the first time i ever seen a golo advertisement, i said, "yeah, whatever. there's no way this works like this." and threw it to the side. a couple weeks later, i seen it again

after getting not so pleasant news from my physician. i was 424 pounds, and my doctor was recommending weight loss surgery. to avoid the surgery, i had to make a change. so i decided to go with golo and it's changed my life. when i first started golo and taking release, my cravings, they went away. and i was so surprised. you feel that your body is working and functioning the way it should be and you feel energized. golo has improved my life in so many ways. i'm able to stand and actually make dinner. i'm able to clean my house. i'm able to do just simple tasks that a lot of people call simple, but when you're extremely heavy they're not so simple. golo is real and when you take release and follow the plan, it works.

knowing that you had to get worse in order to get the care that you needed, can you just talk to us a little bit more about how that felt? >> it was devastating on top of terrifying, on top of

infuriating. you know, we had already gotten this news that we were going to lose this baby that we wanted so desperately. and then on top of that we had to wait for something even more terrible to happen. i was afraid to even google abortion because i didn't know what the laws in texas were. i didn't know if i could somehow be tracked down and sent to jail for even looking it up. >> that is not a clip from 50, 60, 80 years ago. that happened this week, yesterday. that was amanda, the plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging texas' abortion ban, speaking to our colleague, nbc's ali vitally. michelle, women are afraid to google abortion. this is who we are as americans right now, and this is the republican party's positions on this issue. former president trump avoids talking about abortion entirely. florida governor ron desantis signed a 6-week abortion ban in

the middle of innight in april, has barely spoken about it since. tim scott awful waffled on whether he'd support a nationwide ban. former south carolina nikki haley has been vague how she'd handle the issue as president. then there's vice president mike pence more than any other republican candidate, the former vice president has staked his pitch to voters on his unabashed pro-life stance while some republicans including trump and chris christie saying in a post-roe america abortion policy should be left to the states. pence has endorsed a nationwide ban on the medical procedure at 15 weeks. i guess i would say to pence begood luck at the 29%. but it renders all of them unelectable nationally. what do you make of the sort of inability to course correct on the republican side? >> well, there are a few things that are worth noting and not conflating. and the first is that this always where republicans were.

prescott bush, the father of george h.w. bush, was the treasurer of roe v. wade. five of those justice in the seven being republican appointed, justice blackman put on by richard nixon. how did the republicanps get here, and how do they get themselves untethered from where they are now? what was it that corrupted the party such that it couldn't see the humanity of women and girls, and why is it on this mud slide continuing down in this direction, which is unwinnable which is something that republican women don't support. when we think about the mid-term elections and the referenda that were on the ballot, what we saw was that republican women were saying no to abortion bans and saying yes to implementing in their state's constitutions the right to be able to have abortion access in their states. you have republican mothers looking across the table at

their 10-year-old daughters wondering if they're raped by someone up the block or in their family, should their 10-year-old daughters become mothers at 11. and there are republican women saying no, and that's a reality. this is not just democratic women saying no, these are republican women saying no. but it is also something important to think about back to that map, and cecile, thank you for pointing out what else is going on in that map because it's a ven diagram to the american south. it is a ven diagram to the confederacy. that is really important for us to note. it hasn't been why those states in their own efforts to say now we embrace the rights of women, now we embrace the rights of people of color, of black women, mississippi didn't ratify the 13th amendment until 2013. that's the amendment that banned slavery. in 1865 mississippi didn't get around to it until 2013. and mississippi is the state that petitioned the court to

overturn roe v. wade. it says a lot. >> you bring up the supreme court. not just roe, casey was decided by justices appointed by republican and democratic presidents as well. and when justice sotomayor talked about a stench on the court, it's been misappropriated a little bit even by conservative justices, which she was talking about was republican led legislatures manufacturing legislation to make its way to the supreme court to overturn roe v. wade. and she was talking about republican legislators saying that now that trump's picks are there, we're going to do it. this is not lost on the voter. and it's how you lost the republican women and all the independent women as well because it is very much a project in republican extremism. and you talked about some of the history in the republican party. it wasn't because the abortion extremists weren't trying. it's because some of those

republicans -- i'll give the least generous explanation, they knew they were unelectable. even if you call them main stream republican policy. >> that's right. >> and i think the supreme court has to be part of the conversation as well, right? >> oh, it absolutely has to be. i mean, and let's say this, too. when donald trump was in office he was able to nominate and get confirmed more federal judges than any other president save george washington. and he was very explicit and direct about the kinds of people that he wanted, the type of people that he wanted to nominate who would then go onto serve. he wanted people that would in fact overturn planned parenthood and roe v. wade and casey and do

even more intuitive. and that's what he carried out, people who had records that he believed would carry out his agenda. and those as extreme as judge kazmierczak who has by the way has made the father of the supreme court guardrails in the dobbs decision when the court said, well, you don't have to worry about a federal ban, this is going to be a state by state issue. and when judge kazmierczak in amrillo, texas, got the kind of case one might say he wanted in front of him, such that there could be a nationwide ban on mifepristone, a key drug used in medication abortions, he sided with plaintiffs who otherwise would have never had a leg to stand on almost quite literally given the conditions of standing in order to be able to bring a lawsuit in the united states. >> i always refer to trump as sort of a political frankenstein. they made him and now some of

them wish they could run from him. you know, if trump is frankenstein, their abortion bans are godzilla. it is so out of their control because of what michelle's talking about, people like judge kazmierczak down there in amarillo, again, manufacturing a severe limit on safe miscarriage treatment and abortion health care. i mean what do you make of the opportunity to really tell a story in every corner of the country over the next year and a half? >> well, i think one thing. even though, of course, we should give credit to donald trump and to the supreme court, it took collaboration by the republican sents to jam through these three justices as we know one at the very, very, you know, 25th hour of an election on completely partisan grounds. so this was mitch mcconnell's plan all along, and so i think it's important when we think

about -- this has been the republican party's agenda now for at least the past 20 years. and to your question how did we get here, it is because the extreme right wing took over the republican party, and there's no room for moderates anymore in their party at least in the leadership. and that's why we're seeing even in the last election the folks that are getting nominated, dr. oz, you know, blake masters in arizona. we could go down the list. these are people that are on the extreme fringe of the republican party. so i mean i guess it's good news but also sad that i don't think it's going to be that hard to convince american voters of the importance of this issue and how extreme the republican party is. because, you know, say one or two, there's really nobody who's speaking about a moderate or middle position. i also just think the thing michelle said is so important.

i think we were talking about this the other night on tv is what's happening in the southern united states is that -- and women no longer -- it's no longer safe to be pregnant in the southern united states, and one of the comments that was made of a woman hoois part of that lawsuit in texas, she said i feel like once i became pregnant, i became property of the state of texas. and it's really chilling but it's really right. literally you lose all your rights once you become pregnant, and i think that's why american people are recoiling from all walks of life. >> always the smartest conversation about all these issues. thank you so much for starting us off with this today. up next for us the attorney general in a blunt exchange with reporters this afternoon speaking out forcefully against those on the right, accusing him and the trump appointed u.s.

attorney of somehow weaponizing the justice department. we'll bring that to you next. e t we'll bring that to you next moving this summer? join the 6 million families who discovered a smarter, more flexible way to move, with pods. save up to 30% off* until july 10th. whether you're moving across town or across the country.

save up to 30% at pods.com today. (bridget) with thyroid eye disease i hid from the camera. whether you're moving across town or across the country. and i wanted to hide from the world. for years, i thought my t.e.d. was beyond help... but then i asked my doctor about tepezza. (vo) tepezza is the only medicine that treats t.e.d. at the source not just the symptoms. in a clinical study more than 8 out of 10 patients taking tepezza had less eye bulging. tepezza is an infusion. patients taking tepezza may have infusion reactions. tell your doctor right away if you experience high blood pressure, fast heartbeat, shortness of breath or muscle pain. before getting tepezza, tell your doctor if you have diabetes, ibd, or are pregnant, or planning to become pregnant. tepezza may raise blood sugar even if you don't have diabetes and may worsen ibd such as crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. now, i'm ready to be seen again. visit mytepezza.com to find a ted eye specialist and to see bridget's before and after photos.

(vo) this is sadie, she's on verizon. the network she can count on. and now she has myplan, the game-changing new plan that lets her get exactly what she wants and save on every perk. sadie is moving to the big city and making moves on her plan, too. apple one, on. now she's got plenty of entertainment for the whole ride. finally there! hot spot, on. and she's fully connected before her internet is even installed. (sadie) hi, mom! (mom) how's the apartment? (vo) introducing myplan. get exactly what you want, only pay for what you need. act now and get it for $25 when you bring your phones. it's your verizon. you've said previously you stayed out of the hunter biden investigation. it's been on david weiss to figure that out. can you once and for all shed a little light on it? there seems to be a little confusion what's going on here. >> i'd be happy to. as i said at the outset mr. weiss was appointed by president trump as the u.s. attorney in

delaware and assign this matter during the previous administration would be permitted to continue his investigation and to make a decision to prosecute any way in which she wanted to and in any district which he wanted to. >> and he was never told no? >> i said he was given complete authority to make all decisions on his way own. >> today what's up is down, what's down is up. there was attorney general merrick garland defending rather forcefully a trump appointed u.s. attorney from delaware, david weiss, as republicans claim political bias in his investigation into hunter biden. we learned earlier this week that hunter biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes. it's the culmination of a sweeping five-year investigation by weiss into president joe biden's son. weiss' investigation began under ex-president donald trump and continued under biden and garland. garland sought to distance himself from the probe publicly. but republicans are accusing him nonetheless of interfering in

the investigation after yesterday when a house committee released a congressional testimony of a pair of irs whistle blowers who accused the justice department of sweeping misconduct. we bring into our coverage former top official at the department of justice, msnbc legal analyst andrew wiseman, and nbc washington correspondent glenn thrush. take us through how we got here. defending a trump appointed u.s. attorney who by all indication had the authority garland said he had to make decisions about this investigation. >> well, this report came out yesterday from -- from the house 48 hours after david weiss reached the plea agreement, the plea deal with hunter biden's folks. obviously the house republicans were sitting on this, and this is something they want to keep alive in terms of keeping up the pressure on merrick garland.

and when the report came out merrick garland was 4,000 miles away in stockholm, sweden, with a commitment that he had had to meet with eu leaders, but it was a happy convenience for him. and if nothing else what the republicans succeeded in doing was dragging merrick garland in front of the cameras and having him address this issue, which i don't think is something that he would have wanted to do had this report not come out. >> i mean, listen, andrew wiseman, i don't believe in coincidences, and you had donald trump literally weeping on his social media platform i think 40 hours ago saying please do something, boohoo, the night he got the list of witnesses who had already testified against him in a grand jury. i mean color me skeptical but the timing as glenn reports is a little suspicious. >> well, this is a non-story, but i do think that the ball is

in the u.s. attorney weiss' court to actually address this issue. merrick garland has made it absolutely clear that the u.s. attorney was given ultimate authority to decide what to do. the u.s. attorney, mr. weiss, has this letter that he gave to jim jordan saying that is exactly what happened, that he had ultimate authority. and so you have a uniformity in terms of what the attorney general is saying and what the u.s. attorney is saying, meaning whatever your beef is with what happened here, and by the way, you know, everyone including myself has said there's nothing unusual about this kind of disposition for a case such as this. but whatever it is, it's something that mr. weiss had ultimate authority to address. if there are whistle blowers, they should come forward and give actual testimony under oath with cross-examination as to exactly what was said. and the u.s. attorney could also give testimony.

i suspect that the republicans don't want to do that because like many of their hearings, they blow up in their face because they don't have a there there. and so i think this is much to do about nothing. i should just point out that where the attorney general made these comments, it was in connection with a much more important story to this country, which is that the dea has brought a series of cases in new york that were really attacking the problem. they had done undercover operations against the sourcing of materials that leads to the crisis here in to the united states, which is the major source of death in this country. so it's just a shame this sort of non'story is overshadowing really unbelievably good work by the dea on a matter of truly life and death to this country. >> i take the point, and i have to acknowledge being part of the problem. we came on the air not covering

fentanyl. >> i didn't mean it that way. the. >> no, no, listen, i know you didn't, but if you did, it's a fair point. it affects a lot more people and a lot more families have been devastated and destroyed by fentanyl than likely impacted by these two irs whistle blowers. i want to ask you something, glenn. someone said if trump had gone and done a deal and he had pleaded misdemeanors in the documents case and nara had recommended charging him with felonies, it wouldn't mean the u.s. attorney or who did a deal with trump had been corrupted, a nara whistle-blower who said he should have been charged with a felony may have had a right to an opinion, but wouldn't mean jack smith doing a settlement with trump if he pleaded to misdemeanors was somehow awry. is that an apt parallel, that the irs made a recommendation that this trump appointed u.s.

attorney didn't heed or i try to understand what's happening at the bottom of a rabbit hole, and i'm having a hard time even tracking it. >> it is a bit of a confusing scenario, and, you know, garland himself -- it's not -- i should just say having covered garland for a while now, him offering sort of an unequivocal statement on any topic is a rarity. he doesn't like to talk about this stuff, but his general tenor during this thing was puzzlement. he really didn't understand what the testimony really aamounted to, and if you kind of read between the lines, there are two main accusations that weiss groused about not being able to bring a case in california or in washington, d.c. this was a meeting last october, and the other claim was that weiss wanted to be given the powers of the special counsel. well, garland said at the press conference today why would weiss want to be appointed special

counsel, he actually has greater latitude in his current position, and then earlier in the day both the u.s. attorneys in the district in california that was referenced in the testimony and the u.s. attorney in washington put out statements pretty similar to what weiss gave to jordan's committee. so it's kind of -- the story is kind of sealed off every entrance that the republicans were looking to use were kind of sealed off. so the question now is what is there response? and can they -- as andrew pointed out, can they put these witnesses under oath so we can get in addition to just determining the voracity of the story, to understand the narrative because it is a little bit confusing. >> andrew, the republican war on the rule of law always presumes this vast centrist left-wing conspiracy. it doesn't often include trump appointed u.s. attorneys. but this republican conspiracy

does, which does make it different. what do you see in terms of our ability to untangle it not just on earth one but to sort of have this trump appointed u.s. attorney's ultimate decision making something that's ever accepted by the right? >> well, facts and law should matter. and so here i think if we don't see a hearing there's -- it's going to be because they're afraid of actually presenting facts and law. they will know that david weiss would be a witness against them. i should say the same thing happened with of all people john durham where you had matt gaetz suddenly attacking him as being part of the conspiracy. so really what is going on is if you don't tow the line suddenly you're part of -- john durham of all things is part of a deep state conspiracy. and so here i do think, though,

that merrick garland was asked do you have any objection to or do you support david weiss speaking out on this, and he said he did whatever is appropriate under the circumstances, and he also made the point that merrick garland was never asked by david weiss to be a special counsel. and to glenn's point he said not only was i not asked, but why would he even want that because he had broader authority than a special counsel. and i could say the ultimate authority that is broader than the authority given to special counsel. >> all right. no one's going anywhere. up next for all of us, former president obama weighed in today on what he calls growing anti-democratic sentiment in the country. named the world's numbr one for both rivers and oceans by travel and leisure, as well as condé nast traveler. but it is now time for us to work even harder, searching for meaningful experiences

and new adventures for you to embark upon. they say when you reach the top, there's only one way to go. we say, that way is onwards. viking. exploring the world in comfort. hey all, so i just downloaded the experian app because i wanted to check my fico® score, but it does so much more. this thing shows you your fico® score, you can get your credit card recommendations, and it shows you ways to save money. do so much more than get your fico® score. download the experian app now. sometimes, the lows of bipolar depression do so much more than get your fico® score. feel darkest before dawn. with caplyta, there's a chance to let the light shine through. and light tomorrow, with the hope from today. this is a chance to let in the lyte.

caplyta is a once-daily pill that is proven to deliver significant relief across bipolar depression. unlike some medicines that only treat bipolar i, caplyta treats both bipolar i and bipolar ii depression. and in clinical trials, movement disorders and weight gain were not common. call your doctor about sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants may increase these risks in young adults. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report fever, confusion, stiff or uncontrollable muscle movements which may be life threatening or permanent. these aren't all the serious side effects. in the darkness of bipolar i and ii depression, caplyta can help you let in the lyte. ask your doctor about caplyta today. find savings and support at caplyta.com. we see you. athletes. investment bankers. doctors. business leaders. we see your ambition. your desire to succeed.

which is why we are investing in your future. ...empowering the next generation to reach the c-suite and elevating women's golf. because you may not always see yourself in the world, but we see you. ♪ ♪ ♪ [typing] ♪ you were made to act spontaneously. we were made to help plan accordingly. ♪ ♪ this is not just a pharmacy. ♪ this is living the care in healthcare. ♪ walgreens.

moving this summer? join the 6 million families who discovered a smarter, more flexible way to move, with pods. save up to 30% off* until july 10th. whether you're moving across town or across the country. save up to 30% at pods.com today. whether it's districts or trying to silence critics through changes in legislative process, whether it's attempts to intimidate the press, a strand of anti-democratic sentiment that, you know, we've seen in the united states. it's something that is right now most prominent in the republican party.

>> that was former president obama on what he calls a strand of anti-democratic instincts and impulses in the republican party. we're back with glenn thrush and andrew weissmann. andrew, he said it more in an elegant manner. to a bumper sticker, it's the democracy, stupid. do you think we're there yet where this is setting up to be -- and you have a unique vantage point op the assault of the rule of law. the story we're talking about is just a brick in the wall of a much broader republican effort to annihilate the credibility and the legitimacy of the u.s. department of justice and fbi. >> well, first to the former president's comments, he is right both in terms of the history of the world, in terms of democracy is not something that is the norm. it is really still a newfangled

proposition, and certainly in this country, as i'm sure he was thinking but did not say, but slavery and jim crow and the actions of the early 20th century to prevent huge parts of the population, mainly blacks but also women. so that is something that is really -- there's truth that that is a huge part of our history, and eric holder and others are working on that significant problem now. but i think that the larger issue in terms of donald trump is that he really just cares about power. to it is not about principle. so i think -- not to sound doom and gloom, but if he were to be re-elected, it seems to me that that will be a real thing for

not just the department of justice and independence but generally the rule of law in this country. and obviously there's a large part of the population that doesn't have that abiding principle to what it means to be american. >> like dobbs, they didn't cherish the freedom until they lost it. i think, andrew, you're right. the difference, though, is desantis' platform right now is to abolish the independents, the justice department. i think it's conversations to be continued. go ahead, glenn. >> i was just struck by the similarity in what he said to what amy berman jackson, the judge who ruled -- >> yes. >> -- against -- who sentenced one of the january 6th defendants earlier this week said about the shadow of

tyranny. it's interesting hearing a judge who is sentening with a defendant with the former president saying exactly the same thing. >> it is. these voices, we try to lift them up when we hear them, but they are coming from all factors of life. thank you, glenn. andrew sticks around. when we come back, how prosecutors discovering a tape of trump discussing a clad fied document turned out to be a watershed moment in the jack smith investigation into documents held at mar-a-lago. they have all the top grills and gear. with smoking fast shipping. and wayfair deals so epic... you'll feel like a big deal. yes! so get outdoorsy for way less at wayfair. ♪ wayfair, you've got just what i need ♪

(bridget) with thyroid eye disease i hid from the camera. and i wanted to hide from the world. for years, i thought my t.e.d. was beyond help... but then i asked my doctor about tepezza. (vo) tepezza is the only medicine that treats t.e.d. at the source not just the symptoms. in a clinical study more than 8 out of 10 patients taking tepezza had less eye bulging. tepezza is an infusion. patients taking tepezza may have infusion reactions. tell your doctor right away if you experience high blood pressure, fast heartbeat, shortness of breath or muscle pain. before getting tepezza, tell your doctor if you have diabetes, ibd, or are pregnant, or planning to become pregnant. tepezza may raise blood sugar even if you don't have diabetes and may worsen ibd such as crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. now, i'm ready to be seen again. visit mytepezza.com to find a ted eye specialist and to see bridget's before and after photos.

more shopping? you should watch your spending honey. i'm saving with liberty mutual, mom. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. check it out, you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, i'll look into that. let me put a reminder on my phone. save $700 dollars. pick up dad from airport? ohhhhhh. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

hi, there, everyone. it's 5:00 in the east. happy friday. in the undocumented immigrants relenting onslaught of legal jeopardy that disgraces the legally liable for sexual assault ex-president, there are a handful of incidents that stand alone that almost take your breath away in the disregard for the rule of law.

they're so blatantly corrupt, you remember where they were the first too many you heard about them. the top of the list, an audio recording of trump bragging about and waving around a secret military document at his club in bedminster. we're not the only ones whose jaws hit the floor when we learned about that recording. so reportedly, the special counsel jack smith and his team of federal prosecutors. the "wall street journal" headline -- "trump prosecutors struggled over motive, then they heard the tape." from that "wall street journal" report, "justice department and fbi officials disagreed back in august about whether their investigation into the handling of sensitive documents justified the search of trump's mar-a-lago resort. what turned the tide was an audiotape and other evidence investigators confirmed around february from meetings trump held almost two years earlier. that crucial evidence, along with notes from a trump lawyer describing his response to the

investigation, helped spur prosecutors to push forward with a criminal case." we now know that recording, like a record scratch for all of us, and jack smith and his team may not be the only recording they have. a tantalizing possibility that jack smith hinted at in a court filing this week, saying that the first batch of evidence they turned over to trump's legal team included recordings of interviews, plural, that the ex-president had done. today we got a new clue about those recordings. cnn is reporting this -- "donald trump's legal team turned over multiple recordings of the former president's interviews with members of the media and book authors to federal prosecutors during their investigation." that's according to sources familiar with the matter. remember, all of this could have been avoided. as the "wall street journal" reports, "this could have been avoided even late last year if only trump had cooperated and some of his lawyers urged him to do. but that is not to the disgraced

twice impeached ex-president is at his core." particularly when it comes to the nation's most tightly held secrets. gordon, one of the nation's top spies who personally gave donald trump his intelligence briefings and who has briefed every american president dating back to ronald reagan, wrote a blistering op-ed in "the washington post" back in 2021, urging the biden administration to take the unprecedented step of cutting off donald trump's intelligence briefings after he left office. from that op-ed, "my recommendation as a 30-plus-year veteran of the intelligence community is not to provide trump any briefings after january 20th. with this simple act, joe biden can mitigate one aspect of the potential national security risk posed by donald trump, private citizen." the biden administration did heed sue gordon's warning and

cut off donald trump's intelligence briefings after he left office. as we are all now learning, even that was not enough to contain the walking, talking national security risk that is donald j. trump. that is where we start the hour with the former principal director of national intelligence. sue gordon, thank for coming back. >> hey, nicolle. how are you? >> we are great. we haven't had a chance to talk to you since we've pored over the indictment, which has some echoes even of your warning. there was a line about how trump could have pursued a waiver to still have access to classified information, and he didn't do that. give us your reaction to the conduct that jack smith describes in this indictment. >> to see it in black and white, there was a sense we all had, you know, i think there's a piece of hope that somehow it was inadvertent or it wouldn't

be that. but i think to see it in black and white, to see the range of documents that were held, and to see the actions that displayed intent to keep them, listen, i'm not naive. people inadvertently take classified documents home. i have. and here's what i did when i was a junior officer and i came home with a document. i panicked. and once i started reading, i hopped back into the car, i took it back to the office, i went to the security officer, told him what i had done, and it was black in place. so, in addition to the documents he articulate, it's the elements of intention to keep and hold what, one, with not his, and, two, are elements of our national security. i think it's pretty stunning. and i have to tell you, as someone who's been a civil

servant and an intelligence officer for a lot of years, it's sad. the idea that the president, who should care more, who should be more responsible, is somehow less is a pretty -- it's a sad day. it's a sad day. >> i've heard that from other former government officials, and the sad piece, especially from other former national security officials. and we're back to this place, and i know it's uncomfortable for you and i probe you here, but about his pathology. i mean, bill barr has gone here. he's called him a narcissist and a child. chris christie has called him destructive. but when you read jack smith's description of the obstructive acts, of the efforts to get a lawyer, and jack smith declines the plucking, the possession of the documents would be the entire point, not just the retention and potential violation, but that the obstruction of returning them to their rightful owners, what do

you make of anyone who does that? >> well, he wanted them, right. he knew he had them. i mean, this is what this all adds up to. he knew he had them, he knew what they were, and he wanted them. i think i've said before that i don't jump into people's motives, but what i do know is that he likes having leverage. and so, you know, the thought that our nation's secrets and the advantages that we use to keep america safe are a talking point or a trophy or some other kind of leverage is a pretty difficult image to have. and i think one of the -- nicolle, one of the things that's missed in this discussion we've been having is the impact

of a situation where you can't trust the president to be responsible with those things that you have to trust with. so just think about this. the constitution prescribes a president, if you are an intelligence officer, whatever president holds the office, you share with them all the intelligence, the information they need, and you do that for every single president. i've done it for many. i would do it for the next. and that's the way the system works. how is the system going to work if intelligence officers are going to try and decide whether this president is going to be trustworthy? like, how does that work if those people, who are honor bound to give to the president, now say, yeah, but i don't know whether this guy can be trusted. he might take it. do they start making choices about what they share and what

they don't? so, the whole system break downs. one of the reasons why i think this has to come to a head is because the consequence of it not is so much greater than a single individual, it really is about just the fidelity of our system and how it works and how we treat elected officials and how we treat our bureaucracy. so, i think there's a whole ripple effect that becomes obvious when it is clear that the former president intended to keep them and knew what he had. >> i want to go back to while he was president, because i remember after he was in the oval and disclosed classified information that hadn't yet been declassified. somebody was in the oval office when that happened, and called me and said, oh, it's not that bad, we didn't tell him

everything. so that was a person in the oval office who worked for h.r. mcmaster, who was saying a version of the same thing. was there an effort to edit what trump got while he was president? >> never in my tenure, and i wouldn't have permitted it. that isn't -- that isn't the choice. the same choice, just a different version of it, is when someone decides what they're going to disclose. you know what, i don't think you have policies going in the right direction, i think i'm going to take this piece of intelligence and expose it so we have a different dialogue. that isn't the prerogative of the individuals in the system to make that. and again, listen, if you don't like the laws, change them. if you don't like the policies, rewrite them. but to put your thumb on the scale to just decide what you want without the system having any ability to respond would be -- it starts crumbling the

democracy. i was thinking about the former president's words that you showed in an earlier clip. so, the idea of people to start deciding what they will share with an individual rather than understanding that the president, whoever it is, has the right to all of it, is just a breakdown of the system in a different direction. and to me, that's the unspoken part of this situation that really requires us to hold it to account and decide who we're going to be and how we're going to work. >> well, that is the fissure that's happening in the republican party, right. plenty of usual suspects are defending him and attacking jack smith and merrick garland. but people who understand what it mean, what you just articulated, people like chris christie and bill barr, are talking about how much criminal exposure trump has and how it's all of his own doing.

how important -- how important is criminal legal accountability for anyone who does what he's accused of doing? >> so, i'm a system gal, so i tend to trust the system. i've seen plenty of cases where people -- that circumstance yield lenient outcomes and circumstance yields very difficult outcomes. if this is going to go to a jury trial, i'm going to come down on the end of i trust the american people, i trust those 12 humans that will sit there and listen to it, and come to a decision. i hate that we're at this moment. you know, if i think about the days in my life that may be the saddest, i think january 6th is one. i think the day a former president is indooted for something like this is another. but given that we're here and given what we know, if you make me choose, i'm going to say let the system work, because we are better off doing that than

wiping it away because we're somehow afraid. and this is -- this is difficult, you know. like you, i read the articles about what should be the legal outcome. i'm going to say i trust the system, but i do believe that given that we're here, let it play. and if you to play, you don't trust the american people. people have said i don't trust the fbi. where we are right now, this is trust the american people, and i do. >> another sad day. during the transition, this is one of those moments i remember where i was, i was filling in and had general hayden on at 11:00 p.m. and it was the day that -- it was the transition, so he was president-elect trump. and it was the day that he compared the intelligence agencies to nazis. and general hayden said

something similar to you, this is one of the saddest days of my career. and he took me through what happens when that happen, when a commander in chief maligns the intelligence agencies. it doesn't necessarily demoralize the agencies. they have job and mission and culture of their own. but it does make some of our intelligence partners in places where being our partner is a matter of life and death for those sorts of assets and allies made me think twice. i wonder if you can take me through the real-world implications of a president who handled classified material the way jack smith has alleged he did. >> um, well, we look less. as a nation, we look less. with our allies and partners, they have a different obligation than a civil servant does when they share information.

they're going to make their decision about what they do. and i think the other is, is there a system. in place that they can count on, that they understand, that when they interact with it, or is it all just cult of personality and whoever, you know, sits atop gets to make a rule? so, i think when you say real-world implication, there's the -- there's the fact that those documents were sitting in the open in public, and there's the action that the former president is taking with those documents, but all our adversarial and competitors knew where those documents were, and they have considerable abilities and they were just sitting there. so, there are so many real consequences. if they got those documents that

were sensitive, if those documents had sources and methods in them, then either operations or humans are at risk, and our allies and partners and our players inside the system are all looking at this to say, does it work or does it not? and we can put technology in place. we can have policies in place. the end of the day, do the people who hold the roles feel the responsibility of that role? and when that starts to crumble, it's really hard to build trust. you know this. restoring trust takes much longer to restore than the second it takes to break it. so, i think in a way, as difficult as the circumstances in terms of what it makes people think, the fact that we are examining our system and heading ourselves to account is one of the building blocks of restoring trust with our partners.

>> will we ever know if the many, many months during which national defense information and classified documents, including nuclear secrets and human intelligence and i think signals intelligence, were sitting in boxes by donald trump's own admission with his pants and his shirts and his shoes on stages at mar-a-lago, will we ever know if assets for foreign adversaries or foreign intelligence agencies examine them, photograph them, benefitted from them? is that knowable by the government? that's probably a different answer whether or not it's knowable, whether the public will ever be told. >> yeah. i think probably three answers, and you gave me a good roadmap to answer. one contemporaneously, we probably won't know, right. i understand the sophistication of foreign intelligence services, and so i presume if they wanted it, they could do it. i'm looking at this picture.

i think they've got what they need to be able to do it. the second thing, will we know over time the impact of it? we may. right? you see it in what we see our adversaries and competitors do. and what the american people know, you know, i do think that over time the national security community is figuring out that the american people need to know more, because they are part of the attack surface, whether that is through foreign influence or that's just the decisions they're making. so i think we will know over time. but, again, the real consequence, the individual who will face that consequence, the real question, the real consequence is do we have a system that works, that is fair and transparent, and doesn't always come to the right conclusions but does, in fact,

behave in a reasonable way. or are we just the people who ever wants they want can get it. and i think that's the moment we're at. the intelligence will play out. it will be what it is. we can't walk it back. i always believed that we have the abilities to overcome almost any circumstance. that doesn't mean one that won't impose costs and time and risk. >> you've been so good with your time. one last question for you. i had the privilege of getting to know a lot of senior intelligence officials because of the times in which i worked in government years before and during and after 9/11. they draw a direct line from his first day as president when he stood in one of the most sacred places, the cia, and argued about the size of his crowd. you've been more generous than some have privately, his ignorance of the craft, his lack of understanding of what went into the precious things that

were handed to him, the humans, the risks, all of the lives sort of put on the line to bring him the kind of information that lets an american president make decisions designed to protect u.s. national security. there's a through line from that first day to the day of the indictment. do you see it that way? >> thanks for the memory, kind of. so, i started at the agency in 1980. there were 60 stars on that wall. there are three times that now. >> mm-hmm. >> to be casual with them is unimaginable. i told you last time that the idea that a president is less responsible and less concerned is unimaginable to me.

and yet that's the moment in which we find ourselves. now, whether he did that out of ignorance or whatever almost matter, especially reminding me of that wall where so many of my friends are memorialized. >> that wall means so much to so many people. when you become president, it's usually a moment when it means something to you too. a lot of people saw that as a circuit breaker moment. you made me cry. i didn't mean to make you cry. sue gordon, it is always a privilege to talk to you, and it becomes a bigger one every time you come on. please keep coming on. thanks for starting us off. >> thanks, nicolle. appreciate you. >> thank you. >> we'll continue our conversation about big things and about jack smith's sprawling investigations into the human specimen we've been talking about, the twice-impeached, twice-indicted ex-president. after a short break, a big development today in the january 6th investigation and what it could mean for that case. and the far-right group

disrupting school board meetings, pushing book bans, and trying to eliminate inclusive curriculum is finding it difficult to pretend it's not an extremist group when one of its chapters quoted adolf hitler in a news letter. and now she's got myplan, the game-changing new plan that lets her pick exactly what she wants and save on every perk. sadie is getting her plan ready for a big trip. travel pass, on. nice iphone. cute couple. trips don't last forever, neither does summer love. so, sadie is moving on. apple music, check! introducing myplan. the first and only unlimited plan to give you exactly what you want, so you only pay for what you need. act now and get iphone 14 pro max on us when you switch. it's your verizon.

♪ ♪ ♪ [typing] ♪ you were made to act spontaneously. we were made to help plan accordingly. ♪ i'm barbara and i'm from st. joseph, michigan. i'm a retired school librarian. i'm also a library board trustee, a mother of two, and a grandmother of two. basically, i thought that my memory wasn't as good as it had been. i needed all the help i could get.

i saw the commercials for prevagen. i started taking it. and it helped! i noticed my memory was better. there was definite improvement. i've been taking prevagen for a little over five years. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. so many people are overweight now and asking themselves, i've been taking prevagen for a little over five years. "why can't i lose weight?" for most, the reason is insulin resistance, and they don't even know they have it. conventional starvation diets don't address insulin resistance. that's why they don't work. now, there's golo.

golo helps with insulin resistance, getting rid of sugar cravings, helps control stress and emotional eating, and losing weight. go to golo.com and see how golo can change your life. that's g-o-l-o.com. >> it is a quirk of the times we are living in that fake electric

or thes is part of the american lexicon. viewers of this show know the usual suspects who have helped to push the fake electors scheme, rudy giuliani, potentially soon-to-be disbarred john eastman and jeffrey clark. now the block thickens. yesterday, gary michael brown appeared before a federal grand jury in washington, d.c., as jack smith's investigation into january 6th. brown was trump's deputy elector of election-day operations and is accused of being involved in trump's fake elector scheme. jack smith has compelled at least two republican fake electors to testify to a federal grand jury in washington by giving them limited immunity, part of a current push by federal prosecutors to swiftly nail down evidence in the sprawling criminal investigation in the effort os overturn the 2020 election. the testimony dwribed to cnn by people familiar with the

situation comes after a year of relative dormancy around the fake electors. "that activity could signal that investigators are nearing at least some charging decisions in art. of the 2020 election probe. the plot thickens. former deputy assistant to the attorney general and former principal deputy assistant, charles mccord, and former top official at the department of justice, also an msnbc legal analyst and honorary wingman, andrew weissmann. andrew, let me ask all of you about what some of what sue gordon left my head spinning with. that is the national security implications of both of these investigations. it is sad. not to see the rule of law applied to him, but to see what he did to make it have to. and i wonder, andrew, to you

first, both of these investigations have at their core u.s. national security that has historically been protected by people who sat in his chair, in his office, and were surrounded by aides who were suppose stod help any president make decisions to protect the country. he has been indicted for the opposite and under investigation for orchestrating a coup against the government he once led. >> that was a remarkable interview of sue gordon. i had two thoughts at the end. one was working for director mueller in his office right to the left of his office were plots for each of the fbi agents who had died in service for their country as something that, you know, as a former marine was

really just so important to him in terms of honoring them. and when you asked sue about that, the emotion is that's what you feel when you are part of law enforcement and the intelligence community. the second thought i had was for viewer who is want to get a sense of what it's like to be a part of the intelligence community and i'll single out mary and sue as perfect examples of what you deal with day in and day out as part of the intelligence community. it doesn't mean there are mistakes made, and you might disagree with some of their decisions, but if you want to know what it's like to have the country and patriotism and trying to do the right thing in defense of the country, those are two perfect examples. i don't mean to say that harry

isn't also a wonderful person. but -- and a wonderful representative of the department. but i think if you're trying to get a sense of what it means and why you would feel, as sue said, unimaginable that somebody who is at the head of that community as the president of the united states wouldn't feel that same sense of responsibility to the country is something that's very hard to get -- to wrap your head around. >> mary, you have been invoked. i'm going to come to you next. i think, mary bhashgs we've explored with you and what we always come back so is in our conversations, how revealing how uncomfortable it is to view a former president as a threat to national security. i think it's worth watching durgin as republicans speared

the heads of the fbi, asking a question that would have remained secret for a long time, a national security question about trump. it's so bizarre and so extraordinary. it's not the fault of sue gordon or andrew mccabe. it's the fault of trump and the things he did and said, russia, are you missing? i've got this stuff but i can't show them to you. they're classified. the 49 pages of jack smith's indictment of mishandling and willful retention of classified documents are full of things that no normal president says or does. but here we are. i wonder what you think of this moment in terms of mistakes for u.s. national security. >> i think sometimes when we discuss, you know, this prosecution and, you know, andrew and i sometimes get into the details on our podcast as former prosecutors, but i think

what sometimes gets lost is exactly what you're pointing out, nicolle, the information we're talking about here that the former president handled so carelessly for his own political purposes. so even if we accept him at his word, right, even if we accept him saying these documents were mine, of course i could take them, they're all mine under the presidential records act, which is incorrect, but if we accept that, he was basically taking people's lives, waving them around publicly, keeping them in box where is they were vulnerable to being exposed to our adversaries, putting them at harm's risk all so i guess he could feel good about having access to things that he felt like he was entitled to. never once have you heard him express any concern about the people who have spent their lives' work collecting intelligence to protect our national security, oftentimes putting themselves at great risk

and dying, as sue gordon said. i'll just tell you a little anecdote. when i first came over from the u.s. attorney's office to the department of justice national security division, about a month later, the fbi and our military did a capture operation in libya to capture abu khattalah, who we had indicted and charged for crimes related to the attack on our mission in benghazi, libya, killing a sitting ambassador and three other, including three other members of our intelligence community. and i didn't sleep the entire night, so worried about the safety of the people who were risking their lives to capture this person, bring him back to be held accountable if a u.s. court for responsibility for killing u.s. nationals. and that's the depth of it, right. but you wouldn't get any sense at all from mr. trump that he

has any reck situation of the seriousness of what's in those documents or that he cares. they are just political tools for him. >> look, if we were talking about someone accused or charged with murder, we would call that a sociopath. when you're talking about crimes associated with the disregard for the human lives, gathering state secrets, including -- i went through it with her, signal intelligence, the most sensitive, because the existence of it reveals a method and a source. nuclear secrets. human intelligence. signals intelligence. foreign government allies intelligence and secrets. it's something worse than being a sociopath. it's someone who's not fit for the office he last held and certainly not fit for the office he seeks. and i wonder if you think that there's almost a horse race quality, right, to the way we're

talking about the indictment and the case and the trial and what not and a real lack of focus on these -- i mean, trump has been a national security -- at best question since he became president, and at worse now charged with 39 felony counts involving classified documents. what is your advice for sort of focusing and centering our conversations on the stakes of getting this right, mary? >> i do think this is a time for former national security professionals like sue gordon and frankly -- not to turn this into a love fest -- but andrew spent time in the general counsel's office in the fbi also having access to so much of this material. i think this is a time for being united across political lines. those appointed by republican and democratic presidents and people who were career like i was and like andrew was who can come out and really emphasize these things. because at some point, i feel

like even in congress, there's got to be a line that they won't cross. we haven't hit it yet apparently. but is there a line somewhere? and i think that mr. trump is a national security threat. he's one right now and he certainly would be one if he were to become president again. there are other people who are recognizing that and speaking out, but i do think, you know, we're all breathless about will the case get tried before the election, myself included, but we do need to constantly remember to step back and talk about what this is really about. >> harry, we don't mean to be excluing you. want to bring you in on this. >> i should be excluded because of course i agree with everything mary said not just about the sentiment expressed but the callousness and trumpness in which he expressed it. jack smith spoke for 90 seconds,

and when he talked about the national security risk, he let with the people, the peep who have been put in the danger, and then went to the abstract. there's nothing more to be said. they're 100% right. i'll make a quick legal point. most crimes, including a murder you referred to, are retrospective and you are getting the facts, and it's important to deter going forward. this was one from the very beginning that was looking both ways. as he was sitting there, posing an extreme danger, not just for what he'd done but what he might do. that was the urgency that led everyone to eventually -- we have some reporting on this just today -- saying we have to go in, get a search, even though it's a daunting thing with a former president. this is something that really matters for our national security risk in 2024, 2025, et cetera, and our allies, not

just redressing past terrible conduct. >> so interesting. i remember when i was covering the trump administration day in and day out, and anyone in government wouldn't talk to me then. but a former national security official said it was the view of a lot of the people serving in the trump administration that the country and the government and the national security agencies could gird themselves for one term but could not hold for two. so i have to sneak in a quick break. i got this experian app, and now, i'm checking my fico® score. i got a new credit card, and i'm even finding ways to save. finally getting smart about money feels really good. see all you can do with the free experian app. download it now. if we want a more viable future for our kids, we need to find more sustainable ways of doing things. america's plastic makers are investing billions of dollars in new technologies and creating plastic products that are more recyclable. durable. and dependable.

our goal is a cleaner, healthier planet for generations to come. for a better tomorrow, we're focused on making plastics better today. ♪ shelves. shelves that know what taste buds want. shelves smart enough to see, sense, react, restock. ♪ so caramel swirl is always there for the taking. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

get 2.9% apr for 36 months plus $1,500 purchase allowance on a 2023 xt5 and xt6 when you finance through cadillac financial. when you sleep more deeply, you wake up more energized. introducing purple's new mattresses - our unique gel flex grid draws away heat, helping you fall asleep faster. it relieves pressure for less “ow,” and more “ahhh.” and instantly adapts as you move, without ever disturbing your partner. amazing. sleep better. live purple. save up to $800 off mattress sets during purple's july 4th sale. visit purple.com or a store near you. (vo) if you've had thyroid eye disease for years and you go through artificial tears in the blink of an eye, visit purple.com it's not too late for another treatment option. to learn more visit treatted.com. that's treatt-e-d.com.

we are back. andrew, all three of the special counsel investigations, the mueller probe, volume one and two, counting that as one, the documents investigation, and the january 6th investigation have at their core the fact of or the question or investigation into donald trump as a national security threat. mccord looking at russia. check. with documents, willful retention and the intent to keep them that he's been charged with. check. and with the coup, it's a coup plot hiding in plain stigt r sight. it's something he still believes in. his attacks on mike pence and others are for not carrying out the coup he saw as justified.

what do you think about the ongoing nature of his criminal intent? >> for those people who think he's learned their lesson, there's no way on god's green earth that that's the case. again, not to doom and gloom, but if he is eelected, this is very different country. the only reason he's criticizing biden for weaponizing the department of justice is not because he thinks there should be more independents, it's because he wants to have the department of justice at his beck and call. that is a goner, you know, if he is re-elected. i think that it is really worth remembering that it is but for the actions of a very few people that we're not in a much worse situation, people like mark milley and secretary of defense esper, done mcgahn, i mean, very few people i think played very

instrumental roles in not being in a far worse situation than we're in. and if he's re-elected, there is no end of sycophants to make sure that those people are not in place to act out of principle. it will be quite a dire situation. just to relate it to your interview with sue gordon, one thing i think you're seeing with the to intelligence community is one of the reasons i think you see some forward leaning on the tons of documents that were approved for use in this prosecution is because the intelligence community understands the risk that he poses not to them but to the nation. the last time i saw this was in connection with the two rupgs indictments brought by a different team, part of the

mueller investigation, where the intelligence community again was forward leaning because they understood how much this -- that he put us at risk, and they needed to weigh that differently than they might traditionally do, and then a normal criminal case. >> you know, mary, what's interesting to me about covering the trump story is how little of it has changed. i mean, he still, when asked, says very -- you know, maybe some people are numb to it but very oddly complimentary things about putin, said he'd end the war in ukraine in 48 hours, not because he gave ukraine what it needed to win. nobody thinks that. when it comes to obstructing an investigation, the reason so many republicans that were once with him, peel like bill barr and chris christie, are no longer, is because the obstruction was so clunky and clumsy. it's just clear as day that's

what that mission and intent was. and on the coup, i mean, importantly, because it's been viewed for a long time as the bucket of cases to potentially bring. all that behavior is ongoing. eastman is still repeating the lies he told at the ellipse. to andrew's point, but for a handful of people who have spoken out about who knew what and trump's intent, we might not ever have had close scrutiny of trump. >> that's right. i think it's encouraging to see, you know, this flurry of activity at the courthouse, even while jack smith -- the courthouse in d.c., even while jack smith's team is prosecuting a case in the southern district of florida, because the most recent, you know, witnesses called to the grand jury are part of the fake electors scheme, and that is a scheme -- you talk about a coup. this was sort of one piece of

the coup that was being plotted, but it's one where there really are criminal offenses that would not be so out of the ordinary, would not be pushing the envelope, that very well could apply to a conspiracy here related to the fraudulent electors scheme. i think these development wes ear seeing are important. i can't say for sure whether there will be another indictment, and if there is, whether mr. trump will have his name in it as one of the defendants. but it's not something that can be ignored.es that could be bright, and i personally think he incite an insurrection, that's a dramatic charge and i don't think we'll see that in an indictment, but i think this fraudulent electors scheme as well as the fund-raising on the lie of an election fraud are both things

that are much more in the normal wheelhouse -- the facts are not, but the crimes that could arise from those are in the more normal wheelhouse of the department of justice. >> harry, the news today suggests at least some of the attention and energy on jack smith's team that is investigating the january 6th events is we've got deputy director of election day activities i this was the title given. these were people coordinating fake electors. what do you think this means this is where some of the activity , look, i agree even th we may be being overly optimistic to me, but i agree, and as mary said it's a bite-sized and manageable case. i took the presence of brown in particular to be very significant, because he does the hop from the electors themselves who might have been acting out of their own political motives

into if not trump directly, maybe trump directly, that circle, because he's the deputy director of election operations, and he's known most famously for having really been badgering state electors to go this way. moreover, he walked in and testified he may well have had immunity, and that's a sign of seriousness as well, pointing upwards, as they also gave the electors. so, to me, taking this, mary properly says, very sprawling case and prevent bringing the rest of the case later, is i think both logical, it's a sort of insurance policy against problems in the mar-a-lago case, and also in keeping with smith's overall aggressiveness, and finally in keeping with the few hints which i just end as i began, saying we just get what

we get. there may be mountains of evidence that we're not seeing. >> i mean, it's such a good reminder, we've seen so little of what jack smith knows and is doing and is working and considering. but to harry's point, i mean, a lot of evidence was actually developed by the 1/6 select committee, fake electors, voicemails we all listened to with rudy and his deputies, campaign up to their elbows in fake slates and even involved some members of congress. what is your sense, reading the tea leaves, of where that investigation may stand? >> well, a really good data point is think about what we anticipated with respect to the documents case, and then what we read when it was unveiled and we were all, i think, surprised by the level of detail and the fact that there were seemingly so many different sources of information from inside the house. meaning employee one, employee two, attorneys one, two, three,

that there were text messages contemporaneously, there were photographs taken by those people. that is the way a good government investigation works. and jack smith is an invet rat prosecutor who's been at the state level, at the federal level, the international level. so i just think that is exactly what he's putting together now. and yes, we have suggestions of it, but i suspect that there will be charges, and we will have the same reaction where there's just a lot more meat on the bones. and even, by the way, with the indictment, just so everyone's aware, that is some of the evidence, but nobody puts all of their evidence an indictment. so that is really just an outline of key evidence. >> right. we're so lucky to get to talk to the three of you, and sue, and when people compliment the show, they always compliment the people that appear on the show. and that is chief among them the

three of you. thank you very much for being here today. a quick break, we'll be right back. somebody would ask her something and she would just walk right past them. she didn't know they were talking to her. i just could not hear. i was hesitant to get the hearing aids because of my short hair. but nobody even sees them. our nearly invisible hearing aids are just one reason we've been the brand leader for over 75 years. when i finally could hear for the first time, i started crying. i could hear everything. call 1-800-miracle and schedule

your free hearing evaluation today. my a1c was up here; now, it's down with rybelsus®. call his a1c?racle and schedule it's down with rybelsus®. my doctor told me rybelsus® lowered a1c better than a leading branded pill and that people taking rybelsus® lost more weight. i got to my a1c goal and lost some weight too. rybelsus® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. don't take rybelsus® if you or your family ever had medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if allergic to it. stop rybelsus® and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or an allergic reaction. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. gallbladder problems may occur. tell your provider about vision problems or changes. taking rybelsus® with a sulfonylurea or insulin increases low blood sugar risk. side effects like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. need to get your a1c down?

you may pay as little as $10 per prescription. dad and i finally had that talk. no, not that talk. about what the future looks like. for me. i may have trouble getting around, but i want to live in my home where i'm comfortable and my friends are nearby. i can do it with the help of a barber, personal shopper and exercise buddy. someone who can help me live right at home. life's good. when you have a plan. ♪ ♪

i think this is it guys? when the martins booked their vrbo vacation home, they really weren't looking for much: a patch of grass for bruno, a pool for first-timers, don't worry, i've got you. and time with each other. and when they needed support, someone was right there. i got you. because what's unique about a vrbo is you can reach a real person in about a minute. ♪ we covered it the top of our broadcast, president biden holding an event with reproductive advocates and groups ahead of the one-year anniversary of the supreme court ruling that overturned roe v. wade. the president signing a new order protecting access to discrepancy and warning the audience that republicans and the supreme court are prepared

to attack other rights in the wake of the dobbs decision. >> these guys are serious, man. i said it when the decision came out, people looks at me like i was exaggerating. they're not stopping here. make no mistake this election is about freedom on the ballot once again. we made so much progress, we can't let it take us backwards. i believe one of the best ways to continue making progress is ensure women are at every table where every decision is made. >> another break for us. we'll be right back. k. [camera shutter sfx] introducing ned's plaque psoriasis. [camera shutter sfx] he thinks his flaky, red patches are all people see. otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. [ned?] it can help you get clearer skin and reduce itching and flaking. with no routine blood tests required. doctors have been prescribing it for nearly a decade. otezla is also approved

to treat psoriatic arthritis. don't use otezla if you're allergic to it. serious allergic reactions can happen. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. some people taking otezla had depression, suicidal thoughts, or weight loss. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. [crowd gasp] ♪♪ with clearer skin, movie night is a groovy night. [ting] ♪♪ live in the moment. ask your doctor about otezla. moving this summer? join the 6 million families who discovered a smarter, more flexible way to move, with pods. save up to 30% off* until july 10th. whether you're moving across town or across the country. save up to 30% at pods.com today. ♪ the thought of getting screened ♪ ♪ for colon cancer made me queasy. ♪ ♪ but now i've found a way that's right for me. ♪ ♪ feels more easy. ♪ ♪ my doc and i agreed. ♪ ♪ i pick the time. ♪ ♪ today's a good day. ♪ ♪ i screened with cologuard and did it my way! ♪

cologuard is a one-of-a kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45 plus at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪ i did it my way! ♪ hey all, so i just downloaded the experian app because i wanted to check my fico® score, but it does so much more. this thing shows you your fico® score, you can get your credit card recommendations, and it shows you ways to save money. do so much more than get your fico® score. download the experian app now. and this is ready to go online. do so much more than get your fico® score. any questions? -yeah, i got one. how about the best network imaginable? let's invent that. that's what we do here. quick survey. who wants the internet to work, pretty much everywhere. and it needs to smooth, like super, super, super, super smooth. hey, should you be drinking that? -it's decaf. because we're busy women. we don't have time for lag or buffering. who doesn't want internet that helps a.i. do your homework even faster. come again. -sorry, what was that? introducing the next generation 10g network only from xfinity. the future starts now.

thank you for letting us into your homes. we are so grateful. "the beat with ari melber" on a friday night starts right now. >> happy friday, nicole. >> and to you. have a great show. >> we're looking forward, have a great weekend, thank you. our thanks to nicolle wallace as always on this friday. i can tell you what we've been working on that might be of interest. toni